[Funding alert] Fintech startup Setu raises $15 million in Series A round

Bengaluru based fintech startup Setu raised $15 million in a Series A financing round led by Falcon Edge and Lightspeed Venture Partners US, along with existing investors Lightspeed India Partners, and Bharat Inclusion Seed Fund.

In a post on Medium, Co-founder Nikhil Kumar stated that this Series A funding will be used to continue strengthening the startup's team, roll out a suite of new products, and improve its technology infrastructure.

Last April, the startup had raised $3.5 million in a seed round, which was led by Lightspeed India Partners with participation from Bharat Inclusion Seed Fund.

Nikhil said, “We want to reimagine financial services for every Indian, rich or poor, by enabling developers to build products that weren’t possible before. Patience, capital, experimentation, and stellar execution are essential to make this magic happen. With this raise, we’re looking for more creators, geeks, and leaders to join our growing tribe of 30 Setuzens.”

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According to regulatory filings, the three investors were issued compulsorily convertible preference shares (CCPS) at a face value of Rs 100 each and it carries a premium of Rs 2.81 lakh.

Following this funding round, the shareholding of Lightspeed Partners has gone up to 25.31 percent, Falcon Edge by 9.62 percent and Bharat Inclusive at 2.94 percent. In the process, the founders of Setu – Sahil Kini and Nikhil Kumar – have diluted their combined holding from 78.13 percent to 55.42 percent.

Sahil Kini was previously the Principal at early-stage venture capital fund Aspada Investments while Nikhil Kumar was earlier with the iSPIRT Foundation, where he worked on building a vibrant developer ecosystem for the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN).

Bejul Somaia, Managing Partner, Lightspeed India Partners, said, "We are big believers in Setu’s vision to build infrastructure that enables the large-scale distribution of, and access to, financial products. Sahil, Nikhil, and the Setu team have an exciting roadmap for the future of financial services in India and we’re proud to support their journey.”

Setu partners with financial institutions and looks to enable account creation and management, route payments across networks while absorbing the complexity of regulations for businesses that want to offer financial services to their customers.

The startup offers open APIs across four categories: bills, savings, credit, and payments. Any developer can access its sandbox to build an application and go through a rigorous developer certification programme to go live.

This makes it easy for all companies to plug-and-play financial services, rather than spend significant effort and time for one-off integrations.