Twid raises $12 million in funding round led by Rakuten Capital

Rewards and loyalty platform Twid raised $12 million in a Series A round led by Rakuten Capital. Google, ICMG Partners, JAFCO Asia, January Capital and Reddy Futures Fund also participated in this funding round, which saw the involvement of existing investors like Sequoia's Surge and BEENEXT. Surge is Sequoia Capital's scale-up programme for start-ups in India and Southeast Asia.

Rakuten India CEO, Sunil Gopinath will join the Twid board as part of this deal. While talking about this investment round, he said, "Rakuten Capital sees tremendous potential and future synergies in this investment. Given that our global membership products are developed here in Bengaluru by Rakuten India, I'm thrilled to join the Twid board of directors and look forward to working with (Twid co-founders) Amit Koshal, Rishi Batra, Amit Sharma and their team to transform the way reward points are used in India."  

Bengaluru-based Twid plans to utilise the newly raised capital to scale its merchant and issuer network , build its tech capabilities, hire relevant talent and expand its product rollouts. The reward point-based payment platform was founded in 2020 by Amit Koshal, Rishi Batra, and Amit Sharma. It claims to have over 40 million active users on its network. 

Last July, Twid raised $2.5 million in a funding round led by BEENEXT and Sequoia Surge . Angel investors Kunal Shah, Rajul Garg and YourNest India also participated in this round.  

Twid's platform connects rewards point systems issued by different issuers and converts these into a fungible payment instrument. User can redeem their points using the start-up's 'Pay with Rewards' feature at over 50,000 offline and online merchants across India. 

These merchants pay Twid a commission, which is split between the start-up, acquirers and reward issuers like JioMart, NedMeds, Yatra, Gaana, Wakefit, Ixigo, ConfirmTKT, and InterMiles. The technology platform offers these issuers a profitable way to engage with their customers, ensuring repeatability by enabling them to save on every purchase and earn more through each transaction.