Mumbai: The eighteen-month old recharge portal, Freecharge has raised 20 crore from Sequoia Capital in series A round of funding. The company has also received an undisclosed amount of funding in its seed round from Sequoia Capital. The fund will be used to add new products, add merchants who can use Freecharge to target consumers and advertise the service to consumers.

Shailendra Singh, Managing Director, Sequoia Capital, said that the Mumbai based Freecharge has created a new online model, enabled by couponing and they were attracted to the site for not being just another daily deal site. The company allows merchants to publicize offers, that consumer’s pay a small fee for, thereby establishing very strong intent.

A business unit of Accelyst Solutions, Freecharge focuses on creating innovative channels that can deliver value for money to the Indian consumers. It enables the user to recharge his mobile phone. The consumers can also recharge their DTH TVs and data cards for internet services online and in turn, get discount coupons equal to the value of the recharge from over 50 merchants, including McDonals, Barista, Fastrack, Puma, Domino’s, Shoppers Stop and several others.

Kunal Shah, Founder and CEO of Freecharge has also founded PaisaBack and Accelyst Solutions. Prior to founding these companies, he worked as a Director at TIS International and Business Head-BPO for the same company.

Sequoia Capital in India has invested in more than fifty companies. It is an early and growth stage venture capital firm which invests across various sectors: consumer, energy, financial, healthcare, infrastructure, internet, mobile, and outsourcing. Few of its clientele includes Cotton County, Quick Heal, Printo, Via, KMC, Tribi, Prizm, Mannapuram, Unicon, JustDial and several others.