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Freecharge.in raises Rs 200 mn Series A funding from Sequoia Capital
MUMBAI: Online recharge website Freecharge.in, which has launched a new business model for online lead generation and couponing, has received Series A funding of Rs 200 million from Sequoia Capital.
The funds will be used to add new products, add merchants who can use Freecharge to target consumers, and to advertise the service to consumers.
The company had earlier received the seed funding from Sequoia Capital in 2011.
Accelyst Solutions Pvt Ltd (the parent company to Freecharge.in) co-founder and CEO Kunal Shah said, “There are over 600 million prepaid mobile phone users in India, and we‘re offering them a convenient and easy way to recharge their phones or pay their DTH bills online, and we offer them discounts of equal value at a merchant of their choice. At our end, we are excited about the intelligence we are building around the consumer‘s preferences and the ability to target better offers to them, and driving hundreds of thousands of transactions to our merchant partners every month.”
Sequoia Capital managing director Shailendra Singh said, “Freecharge has created a new online model, enabled by couponing. We were attracted to Freecharge because it isn‘t another daily deals site, but one that leverages a very localised phenomenon of pre-paid mobile and DTH services, to generate demand for large merchants. Freecharge allows merchants to publicise offers, that consumers pay a small fee for, thereby establishing very strong intent. Some of the e-commerce merchants that offer coupons on Freecharge have seen their sales grow 50-100 per cent due to Freecharge alone.”
Freecharge has developed a business model by introducing the concept of ‘free recharge‘. Freecharge offers savings to the consumer in the form of coupons from 50+ merchants, equal to the value of recharge. Since its launch less than 18 months ago, Freecharge.in‘s customer base has grown to 1.5 million.
Freecharge has currently partnered with over 50 retailers including McDonald‘s, Barista, Café Coffee Day, Fastrack, Puma, Domino‘s, Crossword, Croma, Shoppers Stop, Pizza Hut and a host of e-commerce websites.
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With 57 per cent single new users, Ashley Madison rebrands as discreet dating platform
Platform says majority of new members now identify as single
INDIA: Ashley Madison is shedding the “married-dating” label that defined it for two decades, repositioning itself as a platform for discreet dating in what it calls the post-social media age.
The rebrand, unveiled in India on 27 February, 2026, marks a structural shift in business model and identity. Once synonymous with married dating, the company now describes itself as the “premier destination for discreet dating” under a new tagline: Where Desire Meets Discretion.
The pivot is data-driven. Internal figures show that 57 per cent of global sign-ups between 1 January and 31 December, 2025 identified as single: a notable departure from the platform’s married core. The company argues that its community has already evolved beyond its original positioning.
“In an age where our lives have been constantly put on public display, privacy has become the new luxury,” said Ashley Madison chief strategy officer Paul Keable. He framed the platform’s offering as “ethical discretion” for singles, separated, divorced and non-monogamous users seeking private connections.
The shift also taps into wider digital fatigue. A global survey conducted by YouGov for Ashley Madison, covering 13,071 adults across Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the US, found mounting discomfort with hyper-public online lives.
Among dating app users, 30 per cent cited constant swiping and messaging as a source of fatigue, while 24 per cent pointed to pressure to curate public-facing profiles and early personal disclosure. Some 27 per cent said fears of screenshots or information being shared contributed to exhaustion; an equal share cited unwanted attention.
The retreat from oversharing appears broader. According to the survey, 46 per cent of adults actively try to keep most aspects of their life private online. Only 8 per cent feel comfortable sharing most aspects publicly, while 35 per cent say they are becoming more selective about what they disclose.
Ashley Madison is betting that this cultural recalibration towards controlled visibility can be monetised. By doubling down on privacy infrastructure and reframing itself around discretion rather than infidelity, the company is attempting to convert reputational baggage into a premium proposition.
