BEENEXT Leads $4.5 Mn Series A Funding Round In YAP

Mumbai-based API platform YAP on Wednesday announced that it has raised $4.5 Mn in a Series A funding round, led by Dirk van Quaquebeke at BEENEXT. Vikram Chachra’s 8i Ventures Fund, The DMI Group via its AIF vehicle The Sparkle Fund, Better Capital, also invested in the round.

Alok Mittal, Ashneer Grover, CEO Bharatpe and existing angel investors, Amrish Rau, CEO, PineLabs, Jitendra Gupta, founder, Jupiter and Abhishant Pant of Fintech Meetup also participated in the round.

The company said it will use the funds to strengthen the team, build technology and offer enhanced API products to fintech. The company’s focus would be on enabling access to credit, corporate banking solutions, cross-border payments and neobanking stack.

Founded in 2014 by Madhususanan R, Muthukumar A and Prabhu R, YAP offers solutions to fintech startups to rapidly develop and roll out payment solutions. The startup supports rewards and instruments such as issuing gift cards, physical or virtual prepaid cards that its clients can customise for their user base. The startup also offers QR code solutions to payment companies.

YAP has partnered with banks such as Yes Bank, DCB Bank, Equitas SFB, and SBM Bank for the API platform offers to its clients. Some of YAP’s API platform clients include Ola, Cred, Bank Open, Niyo, Redcarpet, Slice, among others.

The startup claims that it has processed payments worth over $2 Bn last year. It also claims to have processed over 50 Mn transactions, which represents a growth of 300% as compared to the previous year.

YAP uses an amalgamation of AI, machine learning and data analytics in the backend. The YAP API engine follows REST-based architecture (Representational State Transfer), which is a fairly well-supported standard and can be accessed by a common interface such as browsers or communication protocols.

“YAP has played a crucial role in the evolution of the fintech ecosystem in India. As a provider of digital payments infrastructure, it is very well-placed to benefit from the continuing adoption of digital finance channels by Indian households and companies,” said Shivashish Chatterjee, cofounder, DMI Group.

Even though neobanking is a new business in India, there is no dearth of players trying to broaden the customer base and increase awareness in this segment.

The likes of Namaste Credit, NiYO, SBI YONO, Kotak 811, Hylo, PayZello, InstaDApp, 0.5Bn FinHealth (YeLo), Forex-Kart, Walrus, Epifi, Neo-Bank, Amica, Finin.in, RazorPay X among others have already been gaining significant attention from consumers, industry and investors.

India is poised for exponential growth in digital payments over the next few years. A KPMG report on the Indian fintech market said the evolution of mobile payments has led to a boom in the number of merchants adopting digital banking.