MobiKwik Success Story - Transforming the Face of Digital Payments in India

MobiKwik is one of India’s promising digital payment service providers. The company got started in 2009 by the husband-wife duo and it is one of the few Unicorn companies in India right now. It is one of India’s largest mobile wallets and serves millions of customers daily. The company has also been approved by the RBI and it is a prepaid financial instrument. The app is super safe and more than 3 Million merchants are registered on the platform. So let us get into this article to read the journey and success story of this amazing company.

MobiKwik – Key Points

• Company Name – MobiKwik
• Founding Year – 2009
• Fiunders – Bipin Preet Singh, Chandan Joshi, and Upasana Thakur
• Total Funding - $178.94 M (approx.)
• Headquarters – Gurgaon, Haryana, India
• Industry – Fintech, Software, Digital Wallet
• Parent Organization – One MobiKwik Systems Pvt. Ltd.
• Valuation - $1 Billion
• Revenue - $39.98 M
• Number of employees – 325 - 350
• Website – mobikwik.com

MobiKwik – Founders

• Bipin Preet Singh – Bipin is the CEO and co-founder of the company. He holds a B.Tech degree from IIT Delhi in Electrical Engineering. Bipin worked for several companies such as Nvidia, Intel, Freescale Semiconductors, etc before starting his own company.
• Upasana Taku – Upasana is the co-founder and COO of MobiKwik, She holds a B.Tech degree from NIT Jalandhar in Industrial Engineering and an MS from Stanford University in Management Science and Engineering. She is also the co-founder of Zaakpay and worked with companies like HSBC and Paypal.
• Chandan Joshi – Chandan is also the co-founder of the company. He joined MobiKwik as the VP and got promoted as the co-founder after 2 years.

MobiKwik – Brand Name, Logo, and Tagline

• Brand Name – As the brand name suggests, the company is a mobile-based app that provides digital payment services on its platform. The brand name is 100& appropriate for the company’s business.
• Logo – The company’s logo is bright blue. It looks simplistic and impactful.
• Tagline – The company’s tagline is – The easiest way to pay!

MobiKwik – Business Model

MobiKwik functions of the P2P transaction model, same as all the mobile wallet based digital payments, and service providers.

It takes place with the help of the company’s app.

MobiKwik – Revenue Model

MobiKwik earns a commission on every transaction that happens on its platform. They also earn revenue through a partnership with companies and advertisements as well.

Apart from these, the company also earns from fee-based incomes by cross-selling mutual fund products and insurance.

MobiKwik – Acquisitions

Mobikwik has acquired one startup. The details of the acquisition done by the company are as follows:

Clearfunds – October 12, 2018 (Mumbai based startup)

MobiKwik – Growth

Some of the growth factors of the company are as follows:

• The company reported a 5 times growth every year
• Its gross transaction value reached INR 362 crore.
• MobiKwik targeted more than INR 10,000 crores of transfers in FY 2020.
• The company has a share of more than 26% of the whole Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) in India.
• Their revenue grew up twice as compared to FY 2020.
• MobiKwik’s 63% of the revenue accounts for consumer payments, 12% comes from Payment Gateway and the rest 25% comes from Fintech.

MobiKwik – Revenue

The company’s revenue for the FY 2019 was INR 184.6 crore, and for FY 2020 was INR 190 crore.

MobiKwik – Partnerships

All the partnerships of MobiKwik are as follows:

• Uber India – July 2015
• IDFC Bank – November 8, 2017
• DT One – June 2019
• BookMyShow
• Café Coffee Day
• Sagar Ratna
• JustEat
• Myntra
• Pizza Hut
• Naaptol
• Pepperfry
• eBay
• Snapdeal
• Fashionara
• Shopclues
• PVR
• Ferns N Petals
• MakeMyTrip
• FashionAndYou

MobiKwik – Awards and Achievements

Some of the awards and achievements of the company are as follows:

• Billionth Award South Asia – For contributions to the digital infrastructure of South Asia, 2014
• ET Iconic Brand – 2018
• Amity Leadership Award – 2018
• AWS Mobility Award – Best Financial Services’ mobile app
• Fortune 40 under 40 – The founder duo – Bipin & Upasana, 2016
• Moneytech Award – Female Entrepreneur of the Year to Upasana Taku, 2017

MobiKwik – Funding and Investors

MobiKwik has raised total funding of $178.94 M in the past few years. All the details regarding the funding and investors are as follows:

• $500 K – Seed Round, Sep 2010
• $2.5 M – Series A Round, Sequoia Capital India, Mar 2014
• $25 M – Series B Round, Tree Line Asia, American Express, Apr 2015
• $50 M – Series C Round, Sequoia Capital India, GMO Ventures Partner, May 2016
• $35.4 M – Series D Round, Bajaj Finserv Limited, Aug 2017
• $3.38 M – Series E Round, Sequoia Capital India, GMO Ventures Partners, Dec 2018
• Undisclosed Amount – Venture Round, InnoVen Capital, Jan 2019
• $0.32 M – Venture Round, Cisco Directors Gaurav, Mar 1, 2019
• $1.17 M – Venture Round, NDTV Limited & Trifecta, Jul 23, 2019
• $500 K – Venture Round, Marc 23, 2020
• $30 M – Venture Round, Mar 23, 2020
• $5.57 M – Series E Round, Hindustan Media Ventures, Nov 4, 2020
• $6.9 M – Hindustan Media Venture, Dec 2020
• $5 M – Venture Round, Apr 14, 2021
• $20 M – Series G Round, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, June 9, 2021
• $13.44 M – Pre - IPO Round, Bennett Coleman, Dec 30, 2021

MobiKwik – Competitors

MobiKwik is one of the top players in the market. The company doesn’t have many competitors in the industry and MobiKwik has a good

• Paytm
• PhonePe
• Google Pay
• Freecharge

MobiKwik – Challenges Faced

MobiKwik is one of the leading companies in this industry. It still has various challenges to face. Some of the major challenges of the company are as follows:

• Data Leak – This has been one of the major problems of the company. More than 10 crore customers’ data is available for sale on unauthorized web pages. MobiKwik has always denied this kind of allegation by any cybersecurity researchers. They have also hired a third party to prepare a forensic data security report and perform the audit to prove their innocence in this matter.
• Play Store controversy – MobiKwik was taken down from Google’s Play Store on 28th May 2020 for violating some of their ad policies. The CEO of the company gave several clarifications on this matter and also contacted Google for such a band. However, this ban got later removed but it did harm the company’s reputation and operations for quite some time.
• Competitors – However, MobiKwik doesn’t have many competitors in the market, it still has a few of them who are performing well. They have a good customer base and those companies can give a tough competition in the coming years. It would be not that easy for MobiKwik to overshadow its competitors and divert their customers.

MobiKwik – Future Plans

Some of the plans of the company are as follows:

• The company is looking forward to doubling its revenue in FY 2023.
• They are also working on becoming a 100% profitable company as soon as possible.
• MobiKwik will hire more employees as the company is growing at a rapid rate.