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Back in 2017, Raman Khanduja, Rama Tadepalli, Kabeer Jain, Sanjay Nazareth, and Rohit Ramana started Mintoak Innovation to empower and elevate small businesses and merchants.

The Mumbai-based modular, cloud-native, API-first payments platform enables banks to digitally empower the merchant ecosystem by powering digital payments and financial services.

Ramana says, back in 2017, there was a push for digital payments across India. Consumers were encouraged to pay digitally and merchants had to accept these payments. 

“We quickly realised that the entire payment ecosystem’s economics were funded by merchants. This led to our “aha” moment—if merchants are funding the ecosystem, why not create a solution specifically for them?” says Ramana, who was an investment banker at JPMorgan and sold a company to Hitachi before starting Mintoak. 

Tadepalli and Jain were part of Visa’s leadership team for India and South Asia, and Khanduja was previously the business development head at Visa. Nazareth was also with Visa as a Senior Director (client support).

The seven-year-old startup claims to be serving over 3 million merchants across leading banks such as HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, SBI, and YES Bank in India, and international markets such as Africa and the Middle East.

How it works?

Mintoak offers banks a comprehensive suite of value-added services, including payments, lending, and customer engagement.

The platform integrates with the existing infrastructure of banks to empower merchants with financial services. It simplifies payment processes for small businesses with the help of banks, thus bridging the long-existing gap between the two. 

“Mintoak’s platform is highly adaptable, allowing banks to customise and deploy solutions that cater to their specific market needs,” explains Ramana.

For instance, HDFC Bank’s Smart Hub Vyapar is powered by Mintoak’s platform, enabling merchants to manage payments through QR codes, POS devices, and real-time dashboards.

Additionally, the platform facilitates the promotion and distribution of financial products such as loans and insurance, providing merchants with access to crucial business services. The SaaS startup also streamlines digital payment processes and enhances financial product distribution for merchants across its operational regions.

Hence, Mintoak’s revenue streams include licensing fees from banks, commissions based on transaction throughput, fees for distributing financial products, and charges for value-added services. 

“We prioritise scalability and profitability by leveraging banks’ trust and distribution networks instead of directly acquiring merchants,” explains Ramana.

Overcoming challenges and standing apart

According to Khanduja, the startup is a first-of-its-kind, and in India it doesn’t see any direct competitors.

“Unlike traditional payment aggregators, Mintoak partners with banks to support their core business and provides merchants with a unified platform for all their financial needs. This holistic approach positions Mintoak as a unique and compelling solution in the market,” Khanduja tells YourStory. 

However, building Mintoak hasn’t been easy. In the initial years, the startup faced difficulty in gaining acceptance from banks and merchants as it was a new model for them to integrate with their existing systems.

“Educating the market about the benefits of a modular, cloud-native platform and demonstrating its advantages over traditional solutions required considerable effort. Despite these hurdles, we viewed these challenges as opportunities to showcase our platform’s unique strengths and drive widespread adoption, ultimately reinforcing our position in the market,” claims Khanduja.

The market and plans ahead

According to a report by MarketsandMarkets, the global digital banking market is expected to grow from $8.7 billion in 2020 to $13.9 billion by 2025 at a CAGR of 9.8% during the forecast period.

In February 2023, Mintoak raised $20 million in Series A funding round led by PayPal Ventures with participation from British International Investment. In the same funding round, HDFC Bank increased its stake in the startup to 7.75% from 5.20%, while another existing investor, Pravega Ventures, also participated along with a few other institutional investors.

“Mintoak allows banks to offer a user-friendly, intuitive payments and commerce platform for merchants in developing nations through SaaS. We look forward to the next stage of Mintoak’s growth journey,” said Ashish Aggarwal, Partner, PayPal Ventures, during the announcement.

For FY 2023, Mintoak generated a revenue of Rs 44 crore. 

Speaking about future plans, Ramana says, “Our strategy is two-fold. Firstly, we focus on making a significant impact on merchants’ lives by continuously developing new products and capabilities, whether in payments or value-added services. We evaluate whether to build these solutions ourselves or partner with others.”

“Secondly, while we have a strong presence in India, our goal is to aggressively expand internationally. We see similar challenges in emerging and developed markets, where fintechs aim to disrupt the payment ecosystem. We believe in partnering with banks to help them stay competitive.” 

“To drive this expansion, we’ve made senior hires for Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, aiming to replicate our success in India,” he adds.