YC-Backed Decentro Bags Seed Funding For Fintech API Plug & Play

Fintech startup Decentro has raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from Silicon Valley-based accelerator programmes Y Combinator and Plug & Play, along with Bengaluru-based early-stage VC firm UpSparks VC.

Justdial’s corporate VP Rajesh Dembla, Atlantis Tech and Neo-bank.com founder Gaurav Sharma, angel investor and entrepreneur Steven Sule, Curofy’s founder Pawan Gupta, Meesho founders Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal, Meesho’s CFO Jatin Mazalcar also participated in the round.

Decentro was founded in 2020 by Rohit Taneja. It is an automated application programming interface (API)-based platform that enables financial integrations with just a few lines of code and claims to simplify the product development cycle for its clients by 10x.

The company highlights that most bank API’s and documentation are poorly structured and are ridden with bugs and loopholes, which in turns leads to delay in a product launch. Therefore, Taneja decided to establish a platform to simplify the integration processes for its customers.

“With Decentro, you can sign up as a company/developer on our platform, select your desired banking modules, play in the sandbox, and launch your product or service with those APIs and SDKs within a couple of weeks,” Taneja explained.

He added that the unified approach not only simplifies the customers’ product launch but also the subsequent development cycles and upgrades. One of the biggest hidden challenges in working with legacy institutions directly is the number of touchpoints that you need to coordinate with after completing your integrations, the founder added.

Decentro will also be making an appearance in Y-Combinators’ summer batch of 2020. The company earns its revenues through each API transaction and is working on another model to contribute to its revenue.

Commenting on the fundraise, Taneja added that Decentro’s positioning in the specific fintech space that has a great demand, and market size potential has put it in the investor’s good books. Besides this, Taneja’s past experiences have also gone in favor of the company when it comes to fundraising.

Taneja has previously cofounded mobile P2P (peer-to-peer) and group payments application Mypoolin, back in 2015. The company was acquired by California-based global payments player Wimbo in 2018. Later, Wimbo was acquired by Naspers-backed PayU in 2019.

Decentro is looking to use this funding to double its clientele and hire more talent and expand its workforce from the current 10 employees. Besides this, it aims to add seven banks to its network by 2021. Currently, the company has partnered with ICICI Bank and Yes Bank and is in talks with another undisclosed bank.