State Bank of India invests in fintech startup Cashfree

Mumbai: State Bank of India (SBI) has invested an undisclosed amount in Bengaluru-based Cashfree, the digital payments firm said in a statement Monday.

With this, the country’s largest public sector lender joins a slew of investors—including Apis Partners, Smilegate and Y Combinator—at the fintech startup’s cap table. Cashfree had in November 2020 raised $35 million in a Series B funding round led by Apis Growth Fund II and existing investor Y Combinator, at a valuation of around $200 million.

The company’s payments processing platform is used by businesses like Zomato, CRED, Nykaa, Delhivery, Acko and Shell for e-commerce to vendor payments and marketplace settlements.


“We are excited about our partnership with the country’s trusted and leading lender SBI,” Akash Sinha, co-founder and chief executive officer at Cashfree, said in the statement. “The investment fits perfectly with our growth strategy as we continue to focus on customer experience and product innovation.”

Founded by Sinha and Reeju Datta in 2015, Cashfree processes online payments for Indian businesses. The company is a 2017 alumnus of Y Combinator, the startup incubator based in San Francisco. It competes with the likes of Razorpay, Billdesk, CCAvenue and PayU— and specialises in payment settlement processing transactions through channels and instruments including credit card, debit card, net banking, UPI and popular wallets.

Cashfree said it clocked gross revenue of Rs 228 crore in fiscal 2020-21. It also claims to process annual transactions worth $20 billion. Apart from India, Cashfree’s products are used in eight other countries including the United States, Canada, and the United Arab Emirates.