Scapia pushes into full-stack travel with new credit, commerce, and discovery offerings

Travel-focused credit card platform Scapia has launched a new card offering and is evolving into a full-stack travel commerce platform, driven by the insight that travellers spend nearly as much on shopping and experiences—both before and during trips—as they do on flights and hotels.

The company on Tuesday said it is foraying into three new verticals around its Federal Bank co-branded card ecosystem: an independent add-on card system, an AI-curated experiences marketplace, and a dedicated travel ecommerce store.

"Generally, when people think of travel, they just think of how to get there and where to stay," CEO Anil Goteti told YourStory. "But actually, if you look at consumption in India, about 50% of the travel spend happens on all the modes of transport and where they stay. But 50% of the spend actually happens when people are at their destination."

Scapia Experiences addresses what Goteti calls "decision fatigue" in activity booking. The platform launches with over 5,000 curated global experiences and uses AI to consolidate fragmented listings into digestible options.

Search for tickets to Dubai's Burj Khalifa on competing platforms and you'll find 150 different listings. Scapia uses AI to curate that down to 11 best-in-class options, complete with dynamic filters, ratings, and AI-generated "pro tips" like optimal visit times and recommended camera equipment.

It covers everything from desert safaris and museum tickets to tea tastings and adventure sports. Scapia plans to scale from 5,000-6,000 experiences to 20,000-50,000 over the next few years, prioritising "curated, quality, off-beat selection".

Revenue flows from supplier partnerships with global operators and local specialists in each destination.

The most ambitious launch is the Scapia Store, a travel-specific e-commerce platform built entirely in-house by Scapia's 70-person engineering team. The platform offers 50 subcategories of travel products, and stocks everything from hiking poles and packing organisers to tech accessories and toiletry kits: "everything and anything that the traveller needs," according to Goteti.

The platform curates direct-to-consumer brands and handles fulfilment through third-party warehousing and logistics partners. The store automatically filters products using contextual information: umbrellas appear for Japan's rainy season, while thermal wear surfaces for winter trips.

Goteti sees the store as addressing an $8-10 billion market and expects it to contribute "40-50% in our overall travel GMV," making it as significant as the company's combined flights, hotels, and transportation bookings.

"These are the categories for people who really enjoy their travel," Goteti explained. "The rest of the categories are how to get there or where to stay. This is actually the category that is about travelling."

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Scapia is launching what it claims is India's first fully independent add-on card experience, allowing primary cardholders to issue up to three supplementary cards to family members, each with separate app access, individual OTP authentication, and independent transaction tracking.

Primary cardholders can allocate specific spending limits (say, Rs 20,000 to a spouse or Rs 40,000 to a parent) while maintaining oversight of consolidated family spending.

Add-on users must complete KYC through PAN, Aadhaar, and video verification, but all credit liability remains with the primary cardholder. "Some children or some spouses may not be creditworthy because they have not started working or they have not taken any loans," he said. "Getting a card on their own may be difficult until they build that credit history. Tomorrow, those add-on customers may get us more new customers."

The three launches represent Goteti's thesis that Scapia can own the full travel stack by integrating credit, commerce, and discovery, capturing spending that happens before departure, during the journey, and at the destination.

According to the CEO, cardholders use the card 10-12 times monthly and book travel through Scapia's platform 4-5 times annually. Last year, the card was used in 102 countries.

The strategy capitalises on post-pandemic travel tailwinds and rising disposable incomes among Gen Z and millennial Indians. "People, especially after COVID, have realised that you live only one life," Goteti said. "There's more awareness of travel, more immersiveness into travel and experience of various cultures."

The strategy also reflects a broader shift in Indian fintech, where new-age companies are embedding commerce directly into financial ecosystems to keep customers spending within their platforms. Once focused on cards, loans, and digital payments, several players are now extending into retail, travel, and lifestyle segments.

Flipkart-backed super.money started as a UPI payments app and recently expanded into flight ticket booking in a partnership with Cleartrip. POP, founded in 2023 and backed by Razorpay, combines payments, shopping, and credit on a single UPI-based platform. It offers a curated D2C marketplace with over 500 brands and also has a co-branded credit card with Yes Bank. Even CRED has an in-app store.

(The copy was updated for clarity.)