Setu Raises $15 Mn in Series A Round Led by Falcon Edge and Lightspeed USFunding will be used to roll out a suite of new products, improve technology infrastructure and continue strengthening the team

Application Programming Interface (API) startup Setu has raised $15 million in series A round led by Falcon Edge and Lightspeed Venture Partners US. The company's existing investors—Lightspeed India Partners and Bharat Inclusion Seed Fund—also participated in the round.

Co-founded by Nikhil Kumar and Sahil Kini in 2018, Setu offers APIs across bills, savings, credit and payments. The platform gives fintech companies access to its sandbox where they can build their application and test it in a developer program before going live.

"This funding will be used to continue strengthening its team, roll out a suite of new products, and improve its robust technology infrastructure," Kumar said in a statement. Kumar, chief evangelist of the company, was formerly a fellow at iSPIRIT Foundation where he built a developer ecosystem for Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and GSTN, whereas CEO Kini was a principal at Aspada Investments.

"Sachet-sized' Financial Services

The Bengaluru-based company believes that about one billion Indians need access to "sachet-sized' financial services. "Poor product design, high distribution costs, and legacy technology have been barriers to make this happen," Kumar stated.

Setu wants to solve just that by connecting banks with small businesses that want to offer financial services to their customers. It has partnered with some of the leading banks, including Kotak, ICICI and Axis Bank.

Setu recently launched a feature called "Collect', an API bundle, that lets developers build their own custom collections product. Setu is currently working on fundamental building blocks for digital financial services across FASTag, savings, credit and data, as per Kumar.

"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," said Kumar in a statement.

Navroz Udwadia, Managing Partner, Falcon Edge strongly believes in the themes of rising financial penetration and inclusion in India and said Setu is at the forefront of enabling this.

"By supplying the critically needed "pipe" infrastructure that allows traditional and non-traditional financial products to reach a new class of Indian consumers, Setu can drive the sachetisation of the traditional financial product while enabling traditional public and private lenders to reach a wider cross-section of India in a digitally enhanced manner," he said.

Setu had last raised $ 3.5 million in a seed round about a year ago from Lightspeed India Partners and Bharat Inclusion Seed Fund.