MPW 2023: Why Upasana Taku of MobiKwik is betting on Bharat

Upasana Taku left a secure job at PayPal in the US to return to India in 2008 to launch a fintech start-up, at a time when online payments for sundry transactions were limited to a small number of local internet users. Even the low penetration of the internet (20–25 million users) in the country did not stop her from taking the plunge. Taku, then in her 20s, was certain she could solve the problem of lack of access to financial tools for millions of Indians. Her job at PayPal taught her about digital payments and how wallets make Americans’ lives easier. She learnt during her brief stint in India’s microfinance sector that millions of Indians can only be assisted digitally.

Taku launched MobiKwik in 2009, one of the country’s first fintech start-ups and a major player today. As India’s internet users have grown, she has expanded MobiKwik into payment gateways, digital wallets, digital lending, instant credit, mutual funds, and peer-to-peer lending. India has 1.4 billion people, yet only 150 million individuals can invest and borrow through formal financial channels. Taku’s idea all along has been to offer financial services to the rest who are left behind or ignored by banks and NBFCs. Now, she serves 140 million registered users in India with a merchant network of over 4 million. It’s also showing in the numbers. MobiKwik is in the black at the net level in H1FY24. During the first six months of the current financial year, its revenue has jumped 58 per cent over a year to Rs 358 crore, while it logged Rs 8 crore in net profit as Taku contemplates launching an IPO for MobiKwik.

With the wind now in her sails, Taku is targeting a turnover of Rs 800-1,000 crore by end-FY24 and remaining profitable at the net level. By introducing insurance products, she aims to give the “entire gamut of financial services” to her consumers; 80 per cent of whom live in Tier III to V towns. “Most of them are self-employed, and the financial services we are offering are probably the first services that they have ever availed of. We have reached a certain scale. Now we want to make a difference to the 400 million countrymen who live in smaller towns that we so often define as Bharat,” she says.

Taku’s vision continues to remain as clear as ever.

@arndutt