Top 10 Best Indian Fintech Startups in 2023
Relying on smartphones or laptops for almost everything has become the new normal at present.
Introduction to Fintech
Fintech, or financial technology, describes any company that uses the internet, mobile devices, cloud services, or software technology to either connect with financial services or use them. That money you sent to your friend via Paytm? Fintech. That PayPal payment you made on an online shopping spree? Fintech. The time you did not have to wait in a long queue in the bank for work but got it done on your smartphone? Fintech. Those stocks you bought on the market with a simple smartphone app like Upstox? Fintech again.
Fintech applications allow their users to take control of their personal finances, trade cryptocurrencies, avail loans, or even invest in global companies, all within a single app. In fact, in most cases, an AI-powered fintech app can outperform a traditional financial institution.
Fintech has made it so much more convenient to deal with financial services and has helped us away from the traditional system’s hassle.
The various types of financial technology offerings are vast, from corporate finance management to personal. Private companies can compete with traditional financial services by focusing on specific areas of the financial sector.
A few main types of FinTech services are listed below:
- Savings and investments
- Money transfer and payments
- Insurance
- Budgeting and financial planning
- Borrowing
- Business Accounting and Financial
In the global economy and business landscape, fintech is a significant player that is here to stay.
Let us have a look at the Top 10 Best Indian Fintech Startups in 2023.
M2P Fintech is Asia’s largest API infrastructure company offering a wide gamut of services that enable businesses of any scale to embed financial services. M2P pioneers next-gen fintech through innovative offerings across the payments, lending, and banking ecosystem. M2P’s comprehensive tech-stack powers the core banking system, core lending suite, BNPL, customized credit cards, prepaid cards, and much more.
M2P Fintech is well-positioned with a secure and highly customizable tech stack that helps businesses launch their products with efficacy and speed at its core. On one end, M2P’s platform allows businesses to quickly create and deploy customized fintech products by customizing all relevant workflows through their plug-and-play solutions. On the other end, M2P simplifies the ability of banks, licensed and regulated entities to support these products at the back end by facilitating technology integration as well as settlement and operational support.
Founded in the year 2014 and headquartered in Chennai, M2P Fintech the omni-channel platform operates in over 20 markets across the Asia Pacific, MENA and Oceania regions. M2P Fintech works with over 100+ banks, 100+ NBFCs, and has clocked over 600+ Fintech engagements across various industries serving over 35 million end users.
2. Paytm
Established in 2010 by Vijay Shekhar Sharma under One97 Communications, Paytm (Pay through Mobile) is India’s largest payment company that provides its users with multi-source and multi-destination payment solutions. Additionally, Paytm allows users to send payments with no fees from any bank account to any other bank account. Over 8 million merchants, according to sources, have used its all-inclusive payment solutions. The financial services firm has its headquarters in Noida.
The areas served by Paytm apart from India are Japan and Canada. The app is also accessible in 11 Indian dialects.
Despite a wider loss in the March quarter of the fiscal year 2021–22, analysts predict that Paytm, a leader in the fintech industry, will more than double its share price over the coming years as a result of improving margins and projections that it will achieve adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) breakeven status by the end of the fiscal 2023–24 year.
According to reports, Paytm’s gross merchandise value for the fiscal years 2021–2022 was $110 billion.
3. Razorpay
Shashank Kumar and Harshil Mathur founded Razorpay Software Private Limited in May 2014. The financial services firm is based in Bangalore, and Harshil Mathur presently serves as its Chief Executive Officer.
Razorpay Software Private Limited provides online payment services and offers a platform that allows businesses to collect payments through debit and credit cards, wallets, as well as net banking. Razorpay Software serves customers in India, including the likes of Facebook, Ola, Zomato, Swiggy, and Cred.
Razorpay Software is one of the largest payment gateway solutions in India and is currently on its way to building a new-age digital banking platform (neobank) for businesses in India.
As of the beginning of December 2021, Razorpay had a total payment volume (TPV) of $60 billion. The company recorded year-over-year growth of over 300 percent for the second consecutive year and intends to reach $90 billion in total payment volume (TPV) by the end of 2022.
In addition, Razorpay recently raised its Series F funding round of USD 375 million at a valuation of USD 7.5 billion, making it the most valuable fintech company in India.
4. Pine Labs
Founded in 1998 by Lokvir Kapoor , Rajul Garg & Tarun Upadhyay, Pinelabs provides financing and last-mile retail transaction technology. Its headquarters are in Noida.
Pine Labs provides a merchant platform and makes software for point of sale machines. Its goal is to concentrate on developing a platform for goods and services that increases access and speeds up commerce for businesses in each local market that it serves.
Pine Labs has more than 70,000 retailers across India, including major retail outlets like Pantaloons, Mark’s and Spencer’s Retail, Westside and Shoppers Stop. The company has a presence in Malaysia and other parts of Asia besides India. It is one of the unicorn companies, with a valuation of over $5 billion.
Some of Pinelabs investors include LonePine, Temasek, PayPal, Altimeter, Actis Capital, Capital, Sofina, and Sequoia Capital.
5. Lendingkart
Lendingkart Finance Limited is a non-deposit-taking non-banking financial company (NBFC) providing small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) lending in India.
Founded in 2014 as a digital lending platform by ex-ISRO scientist Mukul Sachan and ex-banker Harshvardhan Lunia, the company has created technology solutions for lenders to find it simpler to determine a customer’s credit worthiness based on big data analysis. Its headquarters are located in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
Lendingkart provides working capital and startup loans to small and medium-sized businesses. The company makes capital available to them so that business owners can focus on their operations rather than worry about cash flow gaps.
Lendingkart has raised a total of $279.2 million in funding over 15 rounds, with the most recent round being a convertible note round on August 12, 2022.
Lendingkart is currently funded by 20 investors. InCred Capital and Yubi are the most recent ones.
6. CRED
Based in Bangalore and founded in 2018 by Kunal Shah, CRED is a reward-based credit card payment app.
CRED, through its platform, allows credit card users to pay their credit card bills and, in turn, offers rewards for each transaction done. The platform also allows its users to make their house rent payments and avail all the benefits of the short-term credit lines that the app offers.
Cred also introduced house rent payment options like Rent Pay, flexible credit lines, Cred Mint and Cred Cash, with which the lenders can lend their unused funds to borrowers who exhibit decent credit scores at an interest rate of around 9% per annum.
The users of the platform get “CRED coins” when they pay their bills through the app. These CRED coins can later be redeemed and used for buying any product, attending any workshop, or entering a contest. The fintech startup wants to motivate people to change their financial behavior through incentives.
According to filings with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Cred raised about $80 million in the first phase of its most recent funding round.
7. MobiKwik
Founded in 2009 by Bipin Preet Singh and Upasana Taku, MobiKwik is a payment service provider that provides a mobile phone-based payment system and digital wallet. Customers can deposit funds into an electronic wallet that can be used to make purchases.
MobiKwik allows users to store up to INR 50,000 in its wallet, which can be used to pay bills, recharge mobiles and shop across various channels. Users can also use the partial payment feature for ticket reservations and cash pick-up for bus ticket bookings.
The Reserve Bank of India in 2013 authorized the company’s use of the MobiKwik wallet, and the company started offering small loans to customers as part of its service in May 2016.
The investors in MobiKwik include NET1, Sequoia Capital, and GMO Venture Partners.
Post demonetization, MobiKwik also made transferring money from the wallet to the bank account free. It has over 100 million users across India. Non-KYC-compliant users can transfer from INR 1000 to INR 20,000 to their bank account. But once your KYC is done, you can store up to INR 1,00,000 in your MobiKwik wallet.
8. BharatPe
Ashneer Grover and Shashvat Nakrani founded BharatPe, a QR code-based payment app for retailers and offline businessmen, in 2018. The company has its headquarters in New Delhi, but there are around five more offices of BharatPe across the country.
The app allows its users to accept UPI payments for free through the BharatPe QR code, which proves beneficial for small-time business merchants and convenience stores and their owners.
BharatPe also extends Bharat Swipe (POS machine) for card acceptance and small business financing. Furthermore, the company also offers merchant loans of up to Rs 7 lakhs that can be availed for a duration of 3 to 12 months.
Additionally, BharatPe recently declared its intention to help its lending partners arrange a $300 million loan book via post in the first 12 months.
BharatPe has disbursed close to $300 million to merchant partners and has a base of more than 7 million merchants.
9. Digit insurance
Digit Insurance is a general insurance and financial services company based in Bengaluru. Founded in 2017 by Kamesh Goyal, it aims to make insurance simple for ordinary people.
Digit Insurance has got a range of insurance policies such as Commercial Vehicle Policies, Bike Insurance, Car Insurance Policies, Travel and Health Insurance Policies, and much more.
Notably, Digit is one of the insurance companies that launched Go Digit Covid insurance, among various other insurance plans that help to cover the treatment and hospitalization costs of the COVID-19 infected people. These facilities can be availed by the users that have previously registered with Digit.
Digit Insurance funding rose to unicorn status in 2021. The company has raised around $530.8 million in funding over the last 8 funding rounds.
And as of January 2022, the current valuation of the company stands at $3.54 billion.
Besides, the popular Indian cricket star, Virat Kohli, has backed and funded Digit Insurance. The cricket star invested Rs 2 crore in the insurance startup, while his wife, Anushka Sharma, also invested Rs 50 lakhs in the company around the same time.
10. ZestMoney
ZestMoney is India’s largest and fastest-growing consumer lending fintech firm. It was founded in 2015.
ZestMoney was started by Lizzie Chapman, Ashish Anantharaman, and Priya Sharma. The firm is supported by Ribbit Capital, PayU, and Omidyar Network, among others.
ZestMoney comes to the rescue for those who are unable to use credit cards or any other kind of formal financing. ZestMoney has a buy now, pay later policy and offers an Equated Monthly Statement (EMI) option which can be used to purchase things online or offline from its partners.
It also offers its users the option to shop right away and pay back in 30 days, 3 months, or 4 months when you use Zest. Zest is accepted at over 75,000 physical retailers and 10,000 online with a simple 3-step acceptance process.
ZestMoney has raised a total of $120.9 million in funding over 9 rounds and is funded by 17 investors. Regal Funds Management and Alteria Capital are the most recent investors.
With the expansion of the Fintech sector in India, changes have been made to financial procedures and accomplishments in budgetary installations throughout the entire business world.
The Future of Fintech in India
With the expansion of the Fintech sector in India, changes have been made to financial procedures and accomplishments in budgetary installations throughout the entire business world.
Over the past few years, India’s Fintech industry has seen an exponential surge in funding, with more than $8 billion in investments already recorded across various stages of investment in 2021. It might come as a shock to you when you learn that India leads the world in FinTech usage with an adoption rate of 87%, outpacing the global average of 64%.
India is the third-largest fintech ecosystem in the world, home to over 2,100+ fintech companies. Of the existing 2100+ financial technology companies in India, 67 percent were established in the past 5 years. For India’s FinTech industry, the previous 65 years have been nothing short of phenomenal. Since credit cards were first introduced in the 1950s, a lot has changed. Bank cash withdrawals were revolutionized by ATMs, and the fintech sector reached new heights with the introduction of the internet in the 1990s. A change has also been brought about by electronic payment systems, web-based business practices, portable banking, and bank digitalization.
Additionally, the potential market size for fintech in India is predicted to reach $1.3 trillion by 2025, expanding at a compound annual growth rate of 31% from 2021 to 2025.
It is worth mentioning that in 2021, India’s fintech startups raised $7.97 billion across 280 funding deals, while the average investment ticket size stood at $33 million.
Lending technology and digital payment startups received the most venture capital inflow among the fintech subsectors in 2021. They accounted for 68% of the total funding amount and 44% of the deal count, respectively.
The Indian economy largely relies on finance and has benefited a lot from the Fintech opportunity over the past few years.
Conclusion
Since 2018, the fintech sector has attracted the most interest from investors in venture capital.
The reason behind sustained investor optimism regarding fintech startups during the past four years has been the rising demand for technology-enabled fintech products across a fast-growing addressable market.
The buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) model under lending technology experienced a quantum leap as Indian retail slowly recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic’s onslaught in 2021. This was made possible by tech-savvy consumers increasing their spending with these quick, small-ticket loans. The buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) space is estimated to offer a $43 billion market opportunity by 2025, growing at an 80 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) due to the early nature of the market.
The fintech industry witnessed a significant revolution because of the rapid growth of the internet in the 1990s. Electronic payment systems, web-based shopping, web-based business models, portable banking, and bank digitization are just a few examples.
The Indian economy largely relies on finance and has benefited a lot from the Fintech opportunity over the past few years. The variety of services offered by the different Fintech startups with a range of options, such as digital payments and digital wallets, is the stepping stone for the advancement of the finance sector. The fintech revolution has had a significant impact on the insurance and lending industries as well.
FinTech has been expanding beyond boundaries as a result of developing technology, shifting cultural trends, and a favorable regulatory environment. Future technological advancements will likely drive the market’s continued growth and revolutionize the creation, distribution, and use of financial products and services over the next few years, according to FinTechs.
