Amazon completes $200 million cash acquisition of Axio, adds an NBFC licence via deal

In a major consolidation move in the fintech ecosystem, ecommerce giant Amazon has completed the acquisition of fintech lender Axio, in what is among its largest buyouts in India to date.

Speaking with ET, Mahendra Nerurkar, vice president, payments emerging market at Amazon said that the required approvals have been secured from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), thereby paving the way for Axio (previously Capital Float) to become a 100% owned subsidiary entity of Amazon India.

Deal Size: While the company did not officially disclose the deal size, sources pegged Amazon’s acquisition of Axio at around $200 million. In January, Axio said it had signed a definitive agreement in December 2024 for the transaction.


The buy now, pay later (BNPL) platform, once valued at nearly $350 million in 2019, has since seen its valuation erode, following loan defaults in its edtech portfolio led by Byju’s a few years ago.

Axio's existing investors which include the likes of Peak XV Partners, Ribbit Capital, Lightrock, Elevation Capital will make a complete exit. Axio will continue to operate as an independent entity and maintain an arm’s length from Amazon, which runs one of India’s largest ecommerce portals.

According to data from Tracxn, Axio had raised around $206 million in funding. As per its latest capitalisation table Peak XV Partners owned 11%, Elevation Capital owned 13% and Lightrock owned 19.4% in the company. In August 2024, Amazon had invested $20 million into Axio, through its Smbhav Venture Fund. That was the last venture funding raised by the Bengaluru-based startup.

Getting further regulated: Through the acquisition, Seattle-headquartered Amazon gets access to an non-banking finance company licence in India, a critical regulatory nod needed for a full-stack financial services business in the country. Amazon already has a mobile wallet licence, an online payment aggregator licence and the insurance broking licence. This is an interesting move for Amazon India, which is slowly building a full-stack financial services business in India.

“Axio will continue to be run by the founders and by the current team at an arm's length distance from Amazon, but it will operate as a subsidiary entity,” said Sashank Rishyasringa, cofounder of Axio.

Future plans: Nerurkar told ET that the company will go deeper with its current pay-later or check-out finance options on the Amazon website and add more merchants to offer this option across categories like food delivery. It will also build out a suite of consumer lending and personal loan products with an eventual aim to lend to small businesses as well.

While he did not disclose details, Amazon has committed to pumping additional capital into Axio, to help it grow its business further.

Rishyasringa further added that with the support of a large player like Amazon, Axio’s ultimate aim is to expand its scope of offerings for the next 100 million consumers.

Current Scale: Axio has built an assets under management of Rs 2,200 crore with a gross non-performing asset base of 1.8%. The company counts around 10 million customers. With the overall tightening of unsecured lending last year, Axio had also tightened its lending pipes. Its AUM was Rs 2,427 crore in March 2024.

Gaurav Hinduja, cofounder, Axio further added that the idea would be to grow the business sustainably. Axio had initially started with a focus on both SME financing and consumer lending, but then moved onto focus exclusively on consumer loans. Now Axio plans to go back to having a mix of credit products. According to a rating document issued by Crisil in January 2025, as of September last year, 63% of Axio's book was in checkout finance with the balance being in personal loans.

The digital lending sector has been undergoing a wave of consolidation following the Reserve Bank of India’s clampdown on unsecured loans. In 2023, ZestMoney, once among the country’s largest BNPL players, shut down, while several other consumer lending startups pivoted to longer-tenure products. MyShubhLoans was acquired by NBFC Ugro Capital, and Lendingkart sold a majority stake to existing backer Fullerton, part of Temasek.