Mumbai-based fintech startup Kiwi has secured ₹208.5 crore (about $24 million) in its latest Series B funding round, marking its largest single raise to date. The round is led by Vertex Ventures and also drew strong participation from existing investors Nexus Ventures, Stellaris Venture Partners, and Omidyar Network. This new infusion of capital comes nearly two years after Kiwi’s last major fundraise, underlining sustained investor confidence in its platform and the sector’s global appeal.
New Fundraise and Increasing Investor Support
Vertex Ventures led the Series B, investing ₹113.2 crore, followed by Nexus Ventures with ₹47.5 crore, Stellaris with ₹34.9 crore, and Omidyar Network at ₹12.8 crore. This latest round pushes it’s total funding to about $43 million since its inception in 2022. According to filings, the company’s valuation has now soared above $100 million, a jump from its $65 million post-money valuation during the Series A round in November 2023.
What is Kiwi and What Does It Offer?
Founded by former Freecharge executive Anup Agrawal along with Mohit Bedi and Siddharth Mehta, Kiwi is differentiated by being the first one to enable UPI payments through virtual RuPay credit cards. As a licensed UPI TPAP (third-party app provider), Kiwi partners with Axis Bank and the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). Upon registration, users are given a virtual RuPay credit card that is connected directly with top UPI apps such as Google Pay and PhonePe—distinguishing between old-school card systems and India’s booming real-time payment culture.
Kiwi boasts of having processed more than 580,000 merchant transactions across 586 cities, indicating healthy early traction amid a hyper-competitive environment dominated by the likes of Slice, OneCard, and Uni.
Check out: CRED Partners with IndusInd Bank to Launch Co-Branded Credit Card
Riding the UPI Credit Wave
This fundraise reflects growing excitement in the financial tech community about the RBI and NPCI’s mission to expand credit on UPI. Since the introduction of UPI-linked credit in 2022, the segment has seen rapid uptake. NPCI itself reports that now 16% of all credit card spending in India happens on the RuPay network, with half of that routed via UPI. Kiwi has positioned itself right at the top of this revolution with what it claims is India’s first full-stack credit-on-UPI proposition.
Check out: NPCI to Launch UPI 3.0 to Enable TVs, Fridges, and Cars to Make Automated Payments
What’s Next for Kiwi?
With $24 million of fresh capital, it is set to grow its base and leverage its momentum, looking to deepen its reach as digital payments credit usage gains pace. The founders of the startup, who individually own around 16.2% after Series A, have put it on a rapid growth trajectory in a $2.1 trillion Indian fintech market that is anticipated by 2030.
As the lines blur between banking and real-time digital payments, Kiwi’s full-stack approach and early scale-up in the UPI-credit space suggest the startup is well positioned to capture a sizable slice of India’s next big fintech wave.
