New Delhi: Lending and digital payments startup BharatPe on Monday announced that it has inked a three-year long deal to become an official partner with International Cricket Council (ICC). As per the agreement, BharatPe will promote the association across broadcast and digital platforms, as well as execute in-venue brand activations at all the ICC events until 2023.
The key tournaments include the upcoming ICC World Test Championship (Southampton, UK 2021), Men’s T20 World Cup (India, 2021), Men’s T20 World Cup (Australia, 2022), Women’s World Cup (New Zealand, 2022), U19 Cricket World Cup (West Indies, 2022), Women’s T20 World Cup (South Africa, 2022), Men’s Cricket World Cup (India, 2023) and World Test Championship (2023).
Apart from integrated brand presence for BharatPe across a host of ICC events, this partnership will also enable the digital payments startup to roll out campaigns to engage with cricket fans and shop owners across the country.
“We believe that cricket is one of the biggest unifiers – that uts across geographies and or languages. This association will enable us to build a stronger relationship with our existing merchants, as well as engage better with millions of new, small merchants across the length and breadth of India,” said Ashneer Grover, co-founder and CEO, BharatPe.
BharatPe said that the ICC partnership is an organic extension to its existing brand strategy centred around cricket. The company currently has 11 Indian cricketers as brand ambassadors, including Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, KL Rahul, Mohammed Shami, Ravindra Jadeja, Suresh Raina, Shreyas Iyer, Prithvi Shaw, Sanju Samson, Yuzvendra Chahal, and Shubhman Gill.
“Our women’s and men’s events, provide brands a high-reach platform for conversations with involved fans. The 2021-23 period presents a unique opportunity with five senior level World Cups taking place, which will set the stage for reaching out to an unprecedented numbers of cricket fans,” said Anurag Dahiya, chief commercial officer, ICC.
Co-founded by Ashneer Grover and Shashvat Nakrani in 2018, BharatPe claims to have over 60 lakh merchants across 100 cities. The company has facilitated disbursement of loans totalling over ₹1,600 crore to its merchants since launch along with point of sale (PoS) business processes payments of over ₹1,200 crore a month. The company has raised close to $300 million in equity and debt, from investors, including Coatue Management, Ribbit Capital, Insight Partners, Steadview Capital, Beenext, Amplo and Sequoia Capital.
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