Sequoia -backed fintech unicorn MobiKwik, on Friday announced appointment of former IndusInd Bank official, Mukul Saxena as the chief executive officer (CEO) for its financial services and payment gateway platform, Zaakpay.
“Mukul joins us at a strategic time; he will help us move exponentially towards our long-term objective of transforming into a full-service neobank,” said Bipin Preet Singh, co-founder, managing director and CEO, MobiKwik.
Saxena comes with over two decades of experience in the digital payments and the fintech ecosystem. In his previous role at IndusInd Bank, he was the executive vice president and head of the payments business. He was heading the payments product and business team with profit and loss ownership for all cards and payments businesses, including debit cards, prepaid cards and merchant acquisition.
At IndusInd Bank, he also led partnerships with fintech companies and large e-commerce merchants.
Prior to IndusInd Bank, Saxena also worked with several other banks and organizations such as ABN AMRO and SABB (HSBC, Saudi Arabia).
Founded in 2009, MobiKwik started as a digital wallet. In the past few years, the fintech company has expanded its product offerings to the buy-now-pay-later (BNPL), payment gateway, lending, wealth management and insurance businesses.
Sequoia and Bajaj Finance-backed MobiKwik claims that it has offered its payment, credit and investment products to about 127 million users and 3.7 million merchants. The company added close to 22 million users in the financial year 2021-22 (FY22).
In FY22, the company clocked Rs 540 crore in revenue, registering an 80% year-on-year growth. The company, however, did not disclose its profit or loss figures for FY22.
In July last year, MobiKwik filed for an initial public offering of up to Rs 1,900 crores with Sebi. The company has recently received approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India to float its public issue.
In October last year, the company entered the much-coveted unicorn club after concluding a secondary transaction led by former Blackstone India head Mathew Cyriac. The transaction followed MobiKwik’s staff exercising the employee stock ownership plan through the secondary sale.
a unicorn is a privately-held startup with a valuation of $1 billion or more.