Banking technology startup Zeta has raised $250 million from Japanese investment major SoftBank at a valuation of $1.45 billion, its co-founder and chief executive Bhavin Turakhia declared. Zeta has become the 14th Indian startup to cross the valuation of $1 billion in 2021.

This was the first-ever institutional investment in the 2015-founded company and also a first for Turakhia, a serial entrepreneur who has started four businesses. The investment happened from SoftBank’s Vision Fund II.  Zeta’s main product offering is focused on retail banks, which integrates mobile app, debit processing, credit processing and lending platform without changing the existing core banking systems.

Its customers consist of the largest domestic private sector lender HDFC Bank and a slew of others.  The company had raised an undisclosed amount of funding from French employee benefits company Sodexo at a valuation of $300 million in July 2019, which was largely a strategic investment.

After the SoftBank investment, the valuation of the company has gone up by more than three times.

SoftBank has backed a slew of Indian startups, with many attaining the coveted ‘unicorn’ status with a valuation of $1 billion or more.

The 41-year-old Turakhia started coding at the age of 10, and turned entrepreneur at 18. He launched Zeta in 2015, after selling Directi - which he had started with his brother in 1998 - for $160 million. The brothers had sold their stake in a slew of ventures in 2014, including Media.net which was sold for $900 million.