MobiKwik promotes payments SVP Chandan Joshi as co-founder, plans IPO in 2022

Digital payments firm MobiKwik on Wednesday said it has promoted senior vice president Chandan Joshi as the CEO of its payments business and co-founder of the company.

Joshi has been part of the MobiKwik leadership team for the last two and a half years, and this is the first time the company has offered a co-founder title to an employee, a statement said. 

Founded in 2009 by Upasana Taku and Bipin Preet Singh, Mobikwik operates in three segments -- consumer payments, fintech (includes credit, mutual funds, among others), and payment gateway.

With the latest appointment, the company has kickstarted its public listing 2022 ‘campaign,’ the statement said. 

“Chandan has demonstrated all the right traits that we look for in a business leader - he leads from the front, is invested in his teams, is tenacious in driving business results and in closing large strategic deals,” MobiKwik co-founder and CEO Singh said.

As CEO of the payments business, Joshi will take on complete ownership of the unit that drives 75% of the revenues, the statement said, adding that as a co-founder, he will join Taku and Singh to set internal work ethos and momentum, organize teams for faster delivery, improve fiscal performance, and getting the company IPO-ready.

The Gurugram based company reported a net revenue rise of 133% at Rs 379 crore in the financial year ended March 2020, from a year ago.

Its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) loss narrowed 63% year-on-year to Rs 45 crore, while cash EBITDA loss shrunk 91% year-on-year to Rs 8.5 crore.

Consumer payments accounted for 63% of the net revenue while fintech was at 25% and payment gateway at 13%.

According to the disclosure, the company has raised over $100 million in funding from Sequoia Capital, Bajaj Finance, American Express and Net1.

Prior to MobiKwik, Joshi returned to India in 2015 and founded Paketts, a last mile logistics service company. He successfully exited the business after Paketts was acquired by Nuvo Logistics (Peppertap) in 2017, the statement added.

Prior to entrepreneurship, the IIT Delhi alumnus was a financial trader in global financial markets with Credit Suisse in London and Hong Kong. Joshi also studied MBA from London Business School.