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Credit card platform Kiwi has raised $6 million in pre-Seed funding round from Nexus Venture Partners, Stellaris Venture Partners, and angel investors.

The startup has also launched its all-in-one “Credit on UPI,” which will help customers make payments using either a credit card or bank account directly through their phones. With this launch, the startup hopes to build one of the largest direct-to-consumer (D2C) models in the credit market.

“UPI has become the most inclusive mode of payment in India, with over 30 crore unique users and 5 crore merchants onboarded on the platform. With the launch of Kiwi app, for the first time in India, users can now leverage the power of a (RuPay) credit card with the convenience and ease of UPI. Our vision is to enable access to credit on UPI for 1 million users over the next 18 months,” Siddharth Mehta, co-founder, Kiwi said, according to a press release.

Kiwi was co-founded in November 2022 by senior fintech experts and banking industry veterans, Siddharth Mehta (former CEO, Freecharge), Mohit Bedi (former Axis Bank and PayU executive), and Anup Agrawal (former business head, LazyPay).

The RBI recently approved the linking of RuPay Credit Cards to the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). On the Kiwi app, a user will be able to apply for and get a virtual RuPay credit card digitally and instantly. The startup said it will partner with some of the leading banks to issue these credit cards. This card will be linked to UPI and the user can transact on all merchant QRs using his/her credit card. The app also features other offerings such as UPI on Savings, and P2P transfers from Savings Accounts.

“In our step towards attaining the goal of ‘Digital Payments for All’, Kiwi will be a game-changer in the Indian credit card industry. With the monthly expenditure on UPI P2M transactions amounting to approximately Rs 3.2 lakh crore, which is almost 2.5x larger than the monthly credit card spends, Kiwi is set to capitalise on a significant untapped market,” Praveena Rai, COO, NPCI, said.

“Kiwi will offer consumers the best of credit cards and UPI i.e. convenience, rewards, and flexible repayment experience of credit cards along with unmatched acceptance rail of UPI which is ubiquitous across India. We are excited to partner with team Kiwi in their mission to accelerate credit card adoption in India,” added Anup Gupta, Managing Director, Nexus Venture Partners.