M2P Solutions Pvt. Ltd, which operates payments-focussed application programming interface (API) startup YAP, has raised Rs 10 crore (approximately $1.4 million at current exchange rates) in an angel funding round.
The round was led by former PayU India CEO Amrish Rau, with participation from Cred founder Kunal Shah, Jupiter founder Jitendra Gupta, 8i Ventures’ Vikram Chachra, Abhishant Pant of FinTechMeetUp and Peifu Hsieh of Karbon.
The Chennai-based company will use the funds to accelerate its growth, expand its team and develop new banking-focussed products, YAP said in a statement. As part of the investment, Rau will join YAP’s board.
Madhusudhanan R, co-founder at YAP, said the firm was also looking to scale its platform across Asia.
Separately, Rau said YAP was using its services to address the problem of fintech companies integrating payment infrastructures with banking pipelines. The integration will help in creating micro-services architectures, which can be used by any fintech, he added.
YAP, incorporated in 2014, says its API platform is used by its customers to open new financial accounts, issues and process payments and co-create new products.
The firm says it has registered a 300% growth in 2019 from the year before, having processed over $2 billion in annual payments and over 50 million transactions as of December. The company says its modular mobile-first API platform is being used by fintech companies including Ola, Cred, NiYO, Redcarpet, and Slice.
Deals in the fintech segment
The fintech segment has seen heavy investor activity for startups across all stages. Startups in verticals such as wealth management and neo-banking have pocketed large cheques. Companies in the space are seeking to apply new technologies to traditional financial products, and bring more people into formal financial structures.
In January, VCCircle reported that micro-loan-focussed mPokket raised funding from a clutch of investors. The Kolkata-based firm, set up in 2016 by Gaurav Jalan, provides micro-loans via a mobile app.
That month, escrow-focussed digital payments platform Escrowffrr raised $150,000 from Inflection Point Ventures, a community of chief financial officers and senior professionals. In December, small and medium enterprise-focused firm LivFin India Pvt. Ltd raised $5 million in equity funding from the German development finance institution DEG.