Cashfree

Invested November 12, 2020

Profile

Cashfree is a payments and banking technology company in India founded in 2015. The Company was processing over US$12bn annualised payment volume (Mar-20) and helps large internet and financial services businesses in India collect and disburse payments at scale.

To simplify payment processing, Cashfree also provides auxiliary services including instant refunds, a split payment solution for marketplaces, subscription payments, payment pre-authorisation and bank account verification. Cashfree’s bulk disbursal solution, Payouts, helps businesses send money instantly to bank accounts, cards, UPI and wallets with a simple API that can be integrated with their products or ERP systems.
Use cases for Payouts include vendor payouts, wage payouts, e-commerce refunds, insurance claims processing, loan disbursements, expense reimbursements, loyalty and rewards payments.

Cashfree is the market leader in India for Payouts.

Headquarters

Bengaluru, India

Region

India

Sector

Payments

Sub-sector

Online Payments

Fund

Apis Growth Fund II

What motivated you to launch Cashfree?

Cashfree was started in 2015 to help businesses offer an alternative to Cash-on-Delivery payments in India. Having to pay by cash at odd hours for online orders was a problem we faced. The fact that online payments weren’t new to India, but majority of internet users still preferred paying by cash was an exciting problem to solve. Hence the name Cashfree!
While Cashfree has since evolved into a platform to collect online payments and make payouts, the objective remains the same – to solve payments problems for businesses and help them grow.

Where do you see the company in 5 years?

Cashfree aims to become the leading payment processor for internet and financial services companies in India. The tremendous adoption of digital payments coupled with forward-looking regulation and policymaking present a great opportunity for fintech. In addition to modernising payments infrastructure to help businesses go digital, Cashfree intends to act as an enabler of other banking services as well.

What is it like to work with Apis?

The best part of working with Apis is their deep understanding of payments and the market we operate in. We are glad to have Apis back our vision and hope to leverage their expertise and network.

“With Apis Partners, we are looking towards becoming simpler, smoother and smarter. Apis Partners backs our ambitious growth plans, to help us grow the business without losing sight of the larger societal impact. We work closely with them to define future product strategy and the launchpad for the global expansion of Cashfree Payments’ solutions.

“The best part of working with Apis Partners is their deep understanding of the markets in which we operate. We are glad that the team at Apis Partners backs our vision and their investment is a strong endorsement of the value of the Cashfree Payments’ platform that we have built. It is a strong affirmation of the vision that we have for Cashfree Payments in the digital payments space in India and globally.”

— Akash Sinha, CEO & Co-founder, Cashfree Payments