India’s fintech engine keeps red-lining, adding new rails for credit, payments and wealth every quarter. Behind that momentum is a cohort of founders who pair deep domain expertise with bold bets on technology and business models. Here’s a closer look at five leaders turning talk of financial inclusion into daily reality for millions of Indians.
1. Upasana Taku – Co-Founder & Chairperson, MobiKwik
- Firsts & accolades: India’s first woman to helm a digital-payments startup, Forbes Asia Power Businesswomen (2019) & Hurun’s 12th richest self-made woman (2020).
- Scale today: 172 million users and 4.5 million merchants on the platform.
- Latest numbers: Q2 FY25 revenue rose 43 % YoY to ₹291 cr; EBITDA stayed positive at ₹6.8 cr despite expansion in BNPL and credit.
- Why she matters: Taku’s playbook now leans on small-ticket credit (Zip) and merchant lending, positioning MobiKwik as a full-stack “neobank-lite” for Bharat while edging toward profitability ahead of a long-anticipated IPO.
2. Prachi Dharani – Co-Founder & CEO, PayGlocal
- Cross-border focus: PayGlocal processes ₹22 bn+ in international transactions for Indian merchants, with plug-and-play local checkout flows in 100+ currencies.
- Fraud shield: Its AI risk stack has blocked fraud attempts worth over ₹1 bn, a critical moat as chargeback rates on overseas cards run high.
- Regulatory edge: One of the first pure-play cross-border gateways to win the RBI’s Payment Aggregator licence (Sept 2024), giving it head-start compliance for upcoming data-localisation rules.
- Why she matters: By de-risking FX payments for over 1,300 merchants, Dharani unlocks global demand for India’s D2C brands and SaaS exporters—a ~$40 bn addressable market still hamstrung by legacy rails.
3. Nitya Sharma – Co-Founder & CEO, Simpl
- One-tap trust network: Serves 25 mn users and 26,000+ merchants with an “invisible” pay-later button that settles every fortnight.
- Checkout ambitions: Partnership with Zepto Pass aims to hit 100 mn instant check-outs by 2026, embedding BNPL deep into quick-commerce habits.
- Capital runway: $83 mn raised to date; now doubling down on underwriting and collections automation after a 2024 cost-cut that trimmed 100 roles.
- Why he matters: In a BNPL field crowding with credit-card alternatives, Sharma’s “merchant-paid” model keeps consumer fees at zero and default rates below industry norms, making Simpl a sticky middle-class wallet.
4. Anurag Sinha – Co-Founder & CEO, OneCard (FPL Technologies)
- Product edge: Metal, app-controlled credit card with granular spend controls and real-time rewards—targeting India’s smartphone-native salaried segment.
- Blistering growth: Operating revenue jumped 163 % to ₹1,426 cr in FY24, up from ₹541 cr in FY23, even as net losses plateaued.
- Distribution: Issuing ~100k cards a month, tallying 1.2 mn cards by Mar 2023, with fresh bank tie-ups fuelling further expansion.
- War-chest: $262 mn raised so far; latest ₹239 cr round (Nov 2024) keeps it comfortably above unicorn valuation.
- Why he matters: Sinha is rewriting the credit-card P&L via interchange-heavy revenue and disciplined CAC, challenging legacy issuers on UX while staying within RBI guardrails.
5. Akshay Mehrotra – Co-Founder & CEO, Fibe (formerly EarlySalary)
- Mission: Instant, small-ticket loans for “new-to-credit” salaried Indians—delivered fully via mobile in minutes.
- Impact to date: 6 mn+ loans disbursed since 2015, spanning personal, education and healthcare credit.
- Fresh fire-power: Closed a $90 mn Series E (Jun 2024) to scale its AI underwriting engine and launch India’s first numberless credit card with Axis Bank.
- Why he matters: By mining alternative data (salary slips, mobile usage, social scores), Mehrotra has cracked sub-₹50k ticket economics—a segment most banks still shun.
Also Read: Fintech’s New Power Players: The Rise of India’s Women Entrepreneurs
The Bottom Line
Whether it’s Taku’s march toward a public listing, Dharani’s friction-free FX, Sharma’s “trust graph,” Sinha’s mobile-first plastic, or Mehrotra’s data-driven micro-loans, each of these leaders is bent on rebuilding finance around transparency and speed. Their success will decide how quickly India’s next 500 million consumers and five million SMEs move from cash and informal credit to fully digital, regulated rails—unlocking trillions in latent economic value along the way.