Indian payments fintech Cashfree lands Apis-led $35m Series B
Cashfree, a Bengaluru-based fintech which helps Indian businesses make and collect payments, has landed an INR 2.6 billion ($35 million) Series B.
Led by Apis Growth Fund II, a private equity fund managed by Apis Partners, the round sees Apis snap up an undisclosed minority stake in Cashfree.
Cashfree co-founders Reeju Datta and Akash Sinha
Existing investor Y Combinator also participated in the round. The fintech is 2017 alumnus of the San Francisco-based accelerator.
Cashfree processes credit card, debit card, online banking, UPI – India’s national payments scheme – and popular Indian wallet payments.
It claims profitability since its first year of operations. And as of March 2020, Cashfree says it has processed more than $12 billion in annualised payment volume.
“As digital payments proliferate globally, the Indian market continues to represent one of the most exciting opportunities that we see in the world,” says Apis co-founder Udayan Goyal.
Cashfree’s five-year growth
Founded in 2015 by Akash Sinha and Reeju Datta, Cashfree claims to have more than 50,000 businesses as customers. These include familiar Indian tech companies such as Cred, BigBasket, Zomato, Zoomcar, and Delhivery.
Sinha says Cashfree’s platform is based on in-house technology.
The fintech believes one of its key growth drivers has been its bulk disbursal solution ‘Payouts’. The integration allows merchants to send money to bank accounts, cards, UPI-linked accounts and wallets.
The service launched in 2016, with the start-up claiming it grew to 100,000 daily transactions “within the year”.
Businesses use Payouts for payments to vendors, employees, customers who have requested refunds or are owed insurance payouts, borrowers, and cashback users.
Meanwhile, Cashfree’s Payment Gateway claims to support payments from more than 100 different payment channels.
Through this gateway, the start-up – as of 2020 – offers instant settlement based on UPI infrastructure. This allows businesses to access funds within 15 minutes of payment capture, as opposed to the two-to-three business day wait time it says firms usually have to face.
Since its launch, the fintech has also unveiled a host of other features. These include a split payment solution, instant refunds, payment pre-authorisation, recurring payments, and bank account verification.
Read next: New challenger Klear emerges in India
