Bengaluru-based fintech startup Kiwi has raised $24 million in fresh funding, led by Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India, with continued support from existing investors Nexus Venture Partners, Stellaris Venture Partners, and Omidyar Network. This funding round takes Kiwi’s total capital raised to $43 million.
The company plans to use the new investment to launch credit lines on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) within the next six months—a product that has been in development since the Reserve Bank of India approved UPI-linked credit in September 2023. The upcoming offering will allow users to access pre-approved credit directly through their UPI-enabled savings accounts, blending the convenience of UPI with the flexibility of formal credit.
Founded in 2022 by ex-bankers Anup Agarwal, Siddharth Mehta, and Mohit Bedi, Kiwi has already carved a niche by issuing RuPay credit cards in partnership with Yes Bank and AU Small Finance Bank. These cards are seamlessly linked to UPI, enabling consumers to make merchant payments directly via India’s most widely used retail payment network.
Since rolling out its services in 2023, Kiwi has issued more than 200,000 RuPay credit cards and now processes over five million merchant transactions each month across 600 cities. The startup is also in discussions with additional banking partners to broaden its product suite. Future offerings will include add-on features for credit cards and EMI options via UPI, further deepening customer engagement.
Looking ahead, Kiwi has set an ambitious target of issuing one million RuPay credit cards by 2027. The company views its upcoming credit line product as a key differentiator in India’s evolving payments landscape.
The funding comes at a pivotal moment for the digital payments ecosystem in India. UPI continues to dominate retail transactions, with around 19 billion monthly transactions and more than 350 million unique users, far surpassing the reach of traditional credit cards. By embedding credit into UPI, Kiwi aims to tap into this massive user base and redefine how Indians access and use credit in their daily lives.
