How Veefin Went From A Fintech Underdog To A Listed New-Age Tech Venture

From fostering more than 1.5 Lakh DPIIT-recognised startups, close to 120 unicorns and hundreds of soonicorns today to having raised over $158 Bn since 2014, the journey of the world’s third-largest startup ecosystem has been no less than explosive, and we (at Inc42) have witnessed it all.

While the expansion of the Indian startup ecosystem has not been without its fair share of challenges, it would be immature to keep dwelling in the past when Indian startups were still learning the ropes, even if it meant burning the investor money for breakneck growth. 

Well, good-riddance to the phase when unstable new-age ventures with half-baked business models invited the dawn of an unforgiving funding winter. The funding winter is over now, and the Indian startup ecosystem has stepped towards renewed maturity, with an increasing number of startups forming a beeline to the bourses to give their backers lucrative exits. 

While many have taken the IPO route, proving to the world that even startups can sustain with strong fundamentals, think Zomato, Nykaa, Zaggle and PB Fintech, many are in the queue. We expected this day to come, and today we give coverage to more than 30 listed new-age tech stocks, which together commanded a market cap of more than $100 Bn at the end of 2024, up from a mere $19.16 Bn, at the end of 2022, when we would cover just about nine companies.

The market cap of new-age tech companies is only expected to grow on Indian bourses in 2025 as ventures like Servify, Pine Labs, Droom, OfBusiness, Lenskart and Curefoods have already set their sail to D-Street.

Amid the IPO gold rush of the last two years, a few new-age tech companies missed our sight, and one such name is Veefin Solutions.

Founded in 2020 by Gautam Udani and Raja Debnath, Veefin Solutions provides a supply chain financing platform to financial institutions and enterprises. It debuted on the BSE SME platform on July 5, 2023, at INR 82 per share after a modest 2.46X oversubscription. 

The company’s fortunes have taken a sharp turn since then. The SaaS provider’s shares have grown multifold, touching an all-time high of INR 753.90 last September and the bull run at the bourses sent its market capitalisation to over $150 Mn by late last year.

A better fiscal health was foretold. Veefin’s profits surged 260% to INR 3.52 Cr in the first half of 2024-25 from INR 97.78 Lakh a year ago, while its revenue leaped 111% to INR 19.09 Cr from INR 9.05 Cr in H1 of FY24. Before its listing, Veefin only had raised a modest $3 Mn in its lone private funding round from a Dubai-based high-net-worth individual. 

Veefin’s success on the D-Street shows that there is enough appetite for new-age tech companies with strong financials.

So, what makes Veefin’s story unique beyond its founders’ claims of building the world’s greatest working capital finance tech platform?

Well, at its core, Veefin provides financial institutions and businesses with white-labelled tech to make the supply chain financing processes seamless. In addition, Veefin claims to be the only platform in the world with financing solutions designed for suppliers, who do not have direct business relationships with large corporations but still need financial support.

Their claim is supported by fintech research firm IBS Intelligence ranking of Veefin Solutions as a global industry leader in the latest IBSi Supply Chain Finance Spectrum Report.

The solid growth over the past couple of years has served as a bedrock for Veefin to look overseas for major business acquisitions. Building a more substantial business suite is what Udani and Debnath have planned to go for a mainboard listing in the near future, precisely what makes us keen to include Veefin in our weekly coverage of new-age tech stocks from here on. 

To get a closer view of Veefin’s business model, fundamentals, outlook and its journey so far, Inc42 sat down with COO Udani, and the revelations were nothing short of insightful.

Tracing Veefin’s Inception Story

In a freewheeling chat, Udani recounted how his tryst with computer science, or more precisely coding, led him to undertake pet projects of developing specific programs for businesses while continuing with his studies in 2006.

Back then, the IT revolution in India was just gaining steam and many firms were looking out for ways to build a digital interface for their businesses. Greener pastures back home beckoned the IT wizard and he returned barely seven months after completing his MSc in a joint programme between NJIT and NYU in information security.

Udani made his entrepreneurial debut with Infini Systems in 2007. “It was a pure bespoke services company specialised in custom application development like building mobile apps, website, ecommerce portals, small business applications, and ERP implementation for entities,” he recalled. 

When Infini was incorporated as a private limited company, it had about 35-40 engineers as employees. With an EBITDA margin of about 35-40%, Udani said, Infini had paved the way for the birth of Veefin. 

Over the years, Infini served in sectors such as edtech, real estate and ecommerce. It came as a surprise to Udani when IFC’s Debnath approached him with a unique proposition to build something in the fintech space.

“Raja visited our office in Mumbai after getting our reference from a friend. I was in awe of Raja, given his credibility in the banking space and over 30 years of experience. I was all ears when he outlined the SCF deficiency across banks in Southeast Asia when it comes to SME banking,” he said. 

Debnath’s Pitch To Udani

While being a consultant at the World Bank’s IFC, Debnath used to lead large-scale, bank-wide digital transformation projects. During his nearly seven-year stint, he claims to have introduced success-fee-based pricing models for IFC advisory work and collected million-dollar-plus success fees across multiple projects. 

He also assisted banks and fintechs in improving their retail and MSME banking through SCF business interventions across multiple areas. This part of his IFC job description triggered him to delve deeper into solving supply chain finance for SMEs. 

While recollecting their 2016 conversation, Udani explained that the dearth of software companies offering supply chain finance solutions for Indian banks was a key concern.

There were only a handful of companies building software to streamline the SCF process, that too in European countries, when Udani and Debnath thought of Veefin. For Indian entities, these solutions might have cost millions of dollars. Besides, they weren’t necessarily optimised for Indian and South Asian financial businesses. 

Taking notes from more established western companies like Orbian, Udani ventured into building an SCF solution for the Indian market and focussed on optimising the process. 

Decoding Veefin’s Supply Chain Finance Play

Udani’s research led him to the critical gaps that existed in the supply chain market back in 2016. 

“Everyone was focussed on fragmented solutions – one company might have a decent lending module and there was never the full package. You had players offering a piece of the puzzle, but none of them had an end-to-end solution. That’s when I decided we needed to build something different, something that could handle the entire digital lending lifecycle,” Udani said, rather enthusiastically, as he narrated the way they brought the jigsaw in place. 

Within a year, this solution started taking shape as an intuitive, accessible, and flexible software, he said. 

Veefin’s USP lies in its low-code no-code platform where the user, that is the banker, can simply drag and drop and define their entire workflow. This allows them to use the software to ease the lending process across multiple products and processes along with catering to the unique policies and workflows of a bank. 

Stressing on Veefin’s requirements, he said banks are dealing with the whole ecosystem of vendors, dealers, and corporations. 

That’s the beauty of it – flexibility and control without the technical complexity. You’re not just restricted to a set flow, you can build out your own workflows, like you would draw a flowchart in Word, and the platform will adapt to it.

Maruti, for example, has thousands of vendors supplying parts – from steering wheels to tyres – and the company’s book is full of payables and receivables. That’s where the supply chain finance model comes into play. 

When a vendor delivers a product to Maruti, they don’t get paid immediately. The process of getting their invoices cleared might even take three-four months. This is where Veefin steps in – by letting those vendors gain avail of financing based on Maruti’s creditworthiness. This helps them from paying exorbitant interest of 15-20% to a bank.

In fact, it’s a win-win for both. It helps Maruti to negotiate with their vendors better and keep their payable cycle cleaner. “I call it vendor-dealer financing,” Udani said. “It allows banks to step in and provide financing through Veefin’s platform. And here’s the key – they don’t need to take on the risk themselves because the repayments are guaranteed by the corporate. If the vendor defaults, the corporate is on the hook, and not the bank. This makes it the safest form of lending in the market,” he said.

The Days Of Windfall Gains For Veefin

As the business model entered its final stages, Udani and Debnath decided to wind down their erstwhile work. While Debnath stepped down from IFC in 2019, Udani had to take a phased approach with Infini so that the relationships he had built over the past decade or so didn’t end on a sour note.

Veefin was set up in 2018 and was incorporated as a private limited company in 2020, just before the Covid pandemic unfolded. 

Debnath’s connections in the banking world in Southeast Asia helped them get their first client in Bangladesh in 2019. The following two years, the dreadful pandemic phase, saw the world embracing a new normal. More and more lenders rushed for Veefin to run their operations. This was a phase of awakening about supply chain financing as the entire financial sector battled to heal the economic wounds inflicted by the lockdowns. 

A further boost came from PM Narendra Modi’s call for beefing up the speed and scale of manufacturing in India. “After the Covid experience, I am convinced that it’s India’s responsibility to move fast in this direction. Manufacturing transforms every segment of the economy,” he had said back in March 2021. 

Veefin today boasts of marquee clients like Yes Bank, IndusInd Bank and Indian Bank, a public sector bank conjunction named PSB Alliance that is a joint venture of 12 state-run lenders, and non-bank finance companies like Jio Financial Services.

As its business gathered momentum, Veefin’s implementation process, too, evolved over the years. From the roughly 18 months that its software used to take to go live on premises for a financial institution, it now needs only four months with larger banks, thanks to streamlined integrations and faster security approvals.

“We’re now growing rapidly, with around 75-88 clients across 30 countries in Africa, Middle East and Asia. The complexity of our platform and the difficulty in replacing it ensures that we have strong customer retention. We’re poised for continued growth, with no real competition in sight. This is just the beginning,” Udani said. 

Of Listing And Beyond

The founders were on the lookout for what next after the business secured a solid footing in Veefin’s first two to three years. Building the business at a rapid pace so far with minimum external influx of capital, the duo were clear that the major driver for Veefin’s business would be its employees. 

By 2023, the company was already a team of 370 professionals. To create value for its employees, it decided to go for an SME IPO. Udani claims that about 100 of the 370 employees Veefin had back then became crorepatis after the public issue. As a result of the solid returns, Udani claimed, Veefin Solutions is yet to see any employee hitting the exit door. 

 

The second factor that drove the duo to the primary market was their common hesitation to raise funds from PEs or VCs, given their determination that a cluttered boardroom might make it hard to scale their business the way they want. 

The IPO gave them fresh capital and returned the stake they had. In a bid to attract investors, Udani claimed that the company went public at INR 176 Cr, down about 25% from their term sheet valuation of INR 240 Cr.

“The IPO served as a nitrous injection to the employees driving our company. I know that no matter how big the problem is, a client does not call me till the time it has gone through multiple layers and everyone has given up. At 3 am also, I can proudly say that 85% of my employees will answer the call if it’s official,” he said. 

The capital infusion helped Veefin’s SCF solutions to go on an auto-pilot mode. With a steady expansion of clientele, largely due to word of mouth, the founders had cleared up a large chunk of their bandwidth around the time of their IPO. This gave Udani and Debnath to weigh an entry into different chains of businesses that could support and expedite their main business line. Over the past couple of years, Veefin Solutions has expanded to Veefin Group, with four new subsidiaries in place. 

The year 2024 alone saw the company making a series of buyouts. A reverse chronology of the acquisitions goes like this: 

• December: Bought 50% stake in Singapore-based GenAI startup Walnut AI Pte Ltd for $2 Mn 
• September: Picked up 26% in EpikInDiFi in a share-swap deal which valued the target at INR 125 Cr.
• August: Acquired global IT services provider Nityo Infotech Singapore’s Indian arm for an undisclosed amount.
• June: Bought 26% stake in Regime Tax Solutions, which works with advanced GST compliance, accounts payable (AP) and accounts receivable (AR) automation. 

The company continued its acquisition streak continued in 2025 by buy Dubai-based TradeAssets through its subsidiary Estorifi Solutions.

Veefin’s buying binge stems from its strategic focus on scaling and building a sustainable, diversified, and high-quality ecosystem within the group. Udani said that he is on the lookout for businesses with strong leadership that aligns with its value and growth trajectory. While the acquisitions definitely build the business stream, it is more about acquiring leadership and formulas that complement the company’s vision.

Udani is aiming to build a team of 20 strong leaders and sees acquisitions as a way to add to that leadership team. Another key criterion for acquiring a company is that it must offer a product or service that is exceptional and adds value to the ecosystem Veefin is building.

No wonder, Udani hopes to see Veefin expanding its chain of services across the world and scaling all of its subsidiaries profitably.

[Edited by: Shishir Parasher]