Flourish, Omidyar co-lead Series B funding in payments infrastructure platform YAP

Chennai headquartered M2p Solutions, which owns payments infrastructure platform YAP, has raised $10 million (about Rs 73.2 crore) in a Series B round of funding co-led by Flourish Ventures and Omidyar Network India. 

Flourish VC is a fintech-focused venture capital firm that was spun out of Omidyar in 2019. Omidyar Network India, part of the larger Omidyar Group, makes investments in early-stage enterprises in sectors such as emerging technology, education, and financial inclusion. 

Returning investors in this round include Singapore-based Beenext, Vikram Chachra-led 8i Ventures Fund, the DMI Group via its investment vehicle Sparkle Fund, and early-stage VC firm Better Capital, according to a statement.  

“YAP is our first investment in embedded finance infrastructure in India, aligning with our principles of Fair Finance to foster a more inclusive economy. The YAP platform provides the rails on which fintechs and incumbents can build new cases for the underserved segment, while delivering financial services in a cost-effective way,” Anuradha Ramachandran, investments director at Flourish Ventures, said. 

This is a second round of funding for YAP in less than a year. In April 2020, it secured $4.5 million in a Series A round led by Beenext.

A handful of prominent fintech entrepreneurs such as Indifi Technologies founder Alok Mittal, BharatPe founder Ashneer Grover, Pine Labs CEO Amrish Rau, Jupiter founder Jitendra Gupta and Cred founder Kunal Shah have backed the firm. 

The fresh funds will help the firm strengthen its technology teams, build new capabilities and expand to new markets across Asia, Madhusudanan R, co-founder of YAP, said in a statement.

“The tailwinds from the pandemic presented a shot in the arm for our business with across-the-board adoption of our API capabilities. At one end, we have over 20 banks accelerating their efforts to partner; at the other end we have over 300 brands and fintechs looking to embed financial products into their user journey. We are uniquely poised to cater to new cohorts of distributors as more firms embed financial services into their digital platforms,” he added. 
 
YAP’s infrastructure currently serves companies in India, Nepal, the United Arab Emirates, Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines. YAP intends to expand to Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Egypt, Vietnam and Indonesia. 

Founded in 2014 by Madhusudan, Muthukumar A, and Prabhu R, the platform provides application programme interface (API) solutions to banks and financial technology companies to develop products around bank accounts and term deposits, in addition to a range of digital payment modes including debt, credit, prepaid, QR, UPI, and toll payments.  

The company claims to have worked with over 300 businesses so far whose API products have been utilized by technology companies such as OLA, Cred, Razorpay, and Finin.