TransBnk Bags $4 Mn To Boost Its Transactional Banking Tech Stack For Banks & NBFCs

Transaction banking platform TransBnk has raised $4 Mn (INR 33 Cr) in a Series A funding round co-led by 8i Ventures and Accion Venture Lab.

The round also saw participation from a clutch of investors, GMO Venture Partners, Ratio Ventures and Force Ventures among others.

The Mumbai-based company plans to use the fresh capital to expand its network of banking partners as well as to expand globally across the Middle East and South East Asian markets.

Besides, a few portions of the proceeds will also be deployed by the startup to boost its tech infrastructure and product stack.

Founded in 2022 by Vaibhav Tambe, Lavin Kotian, Sachin Gupta and Pulak Jain, TransBnk offers APIs that allow banks, NBFCs and fintech firms to build new services for lending, payments, and customer onboarding.

The company claims to have emerged as a solution for financial institutions handling complex transactions like treasury management, co-lending, supply chain finance and cash flow based lending.

“We provide banks, NBFCs and fintech firms with tech and infrastructure rails. On one hand, we have partnered with 25 to 26 banks, and on the other hand, we are providing these services to large NBFCs, fintechs, and some mutual funds, predominantly for payments, lending, or supply chain finance use cases,” TransBnk’s cofounder and CEO Vaibhav Tambe told Inc42.

“We want to ensure that the ring fencing mode is there and we stay longer in that particular anchor or that particular bank. And their idea, of course, is to, you know, build this particular, you know, aspect across all the different geographies,” Tambe added.

The company also claims to have witnessed 10X revenue growth since its seed round last year. It currently has partnerships with 25 banks, offering over 200 APIs, and works with 100 BFSI clients. It has supported over 5,000 accounts including escrows and processed more than 50 Mn transactions.

The development comes on the back of the Indian digital banking space witnessing a push from the Centre with a slew of initiatives. 

For instance, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced setting up more than 100 branches of India Post Payments Bank (IPBB) in Northeast India, during her Union Budget speech for 2024. The Centre also allotted INR 1,441 Cr to intensify digital payments.

Last month, government-backed Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) announced potential onboarding of banks including HDFC Bank, IDFC First Bank and Karnataka Bank, alongside fintech firms like Fibe and others on its platform.

In February, digital banking platform Freo raised an undisclosed debt funding from Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) to branch out into newer categories and segments as well as to expand its footprint across India.

As per Inc42’s data, globally, the business-as-a-service (BaaS) market is expected to reach $11.6 Bn by 2028 from an estimated $4.4 Bn in 2023, growing at a CAGR of 26.60%.