Topic

Fintech: the women building India’s money rails.

Wallets, cashback, lending and payments — women on the rails.

9 stories in Fintech

Akkineni Keerthi built innopay into a fintech millions use, without raising a single rupee

When the pandemic pushed India onto its phone to pay for everything, Akkineni Keerthi saw what millions only felt, that digital payments had become essential, and were still nowhere near simple enough. The company she co-founded in answer, innopay, now carries more than 30 financial services, a crore-plus downloads and over ₹1,600 crore in transactions. She built all of it without taking a rupee of outside money.

8 min read

Angel Investing · Startup Funding

How Padmaja Ruparel co-founded Indian Angel Network, and made Indian angel investing into an institution

Before 2006, Indian angel investing was a private set of phone calls between a handful of senior operators. The Indian Angel Network turned it into a formal platform, with diligence, governance and a national chapter network.

9 min read

Fintech · Neobank

How Mabel Chacko co-built Open into one of India’s fintech unicorns

A business-banking layer for SMEs, built by a founding team that had been trying to fix payments for years before Open worked.

8 min read

Fintech · Startups

Shanti Mohan left a long tech career to build the plumbing for Indian angel investing

She founded LetsVenture to make raising early money, and the cap-table, ESOP and trust machinery behind it, structured rather than ad hoc.

8 min read

Fintech · Unicorn

Ruchi Kalra co-founded two profitable unicorns, and made Oxyzo one at its Series A

A former McKinsey financial-services partner who helped build OfBusiness in 2015 and then turned its lending arm, Oxyzo, into a billion-dollar company at its very first institutional round.

9 min read

Fintech

Upasana Taku left PayPal in Silicon Valley to build MobiKwik in Delhi

Fifteen years and one stock market listing later, she is one of the few women founders to have taken an Indian fintech public.

8 min read

Fintech · Inclusion

Sucharita Mukherjee left investment banking to build money rails for India’s informal economy

From structuring debt in London to co-founding Kaleidofin, she has spent her career trying to make finance work for customers banks were never designed to serve.

8 min read

Fintech · Asset Mgmt

Radhika Gupta co-founded a quant fund, sold it to Edelweiss, then ran the whole fund house

Rejected by interviewers early in her career, she co-built Forefront Capital Management, saw it acquired by Edelweiss, and became one of the youngest CEOs of an Indian mutual fund.

8 min read

Fintech · D2C

Swati Bhargava left Goldman Sachs in London to build CashKaro, now the country’s biggest cashback affiliate

Co-founded in 2013 with her husband Rohan, CashKaro put one of the oldest e-commerce mechanics, cashback, at the centre of an Indian shopper’s journey.

7 min read

Frequently asked questions

+ What does the Fintech topic cover?

Wallets, cashback, lending and payments — women on the rails.

+ How many Fintech founder stories are on Women Can Startup?

We've published 9 stories in Fintech so far, newest first, and add more as we research and verify new founders.

+ Are all these Fintech founders women?

Yes. Every founder we profile is a woman founder or co-founder, and we confirm that — along with the company's key facts — across multiple independent sources before a story goes live.

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Fintech: the women building India’s money rails.

Akkineni Keerthi built innopay into a fintech millions use, without raising a single rupee

How Padmaja Ruparel co-founded Indian Angel Network, and made Indian angel investing into an institution

How Mabel Chacko co-built Open into one of India’s fintech unicorns

Shanti Mohan left a long tech career to build the plumbing for Indian angel investing

Ruchi Kalra co-founded two profitable unicorns, and made Oxyzo one at its Series A

Upasana Taku left PayPal in Silicon Valley to build MobiKwik in Delhi

Sucharita Mukherjee left investment banking to build money rails for India’s informal economy

Radhika Gupta co-founded a quant fund, sold it to Edelweiss, then ran the whole fund house

Swati Bhargava left Goldman Sachs in London to build CashKaro, now the country’s biggest cashback affiliate

Frequently asked questions

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