Xflow, a financial technology startup originating from India, has garnered support from both Stripe and PayPal Ventures during a $16.6 million capital raising initiative. This financial injection materializes as the company strives to solidify its footing in international B2B payments, a sector predominantly governed by banking institutions and conventional, manual operations.
The Series A funding round was spearheaded by General Catalyst, with existing investors Square Peg, Stripe, Lightspeed, and Moore Capital also participating, while PayPal Ventures entered as a fresh supporter. This all-equity round values the Bengaluru-headquartered startup at $85 million following the investment, escalating its cumulative funding to over $32 million thus far.
Despite rapid digitalization in domestic transactions, cross-border B2B transfers for Indian exporters largely depend on banks, often providing limited insight into fees, settlement schedules, and the precise amount received in rupees. This friction is particularly pronounced for major exporters transferring millions of dollars into India to cover payroll and local operations, thereby creating an opportunity for fintech infrastructure providers like Xflow, which promise enhanced clarity and quicker processing in global money movement.
Established in 2021, Xflow offers international payment infrastructure for diverse businesses, spanning exporters, SaaS companies, platforms, and independent contractors, enabling them to collect funds globally, manage foreign currency, and settle monies within India.
“International B2B payments remained stuck in a bygone era compared to UPI,” co-founder Anand Balaji (pictured above, center) remarked in an interview, referencing India’s widely adopted instant domestic payments network, the Unified Payments Interface.
Balaji, who previously contributed to developing Stripe’s operations in India, co-founded Xflow with former Stripe colleagues Ashwin Bhatnagar (pictured above, left) and Abhijit Chandrasekaran (pictured above, right).
Last year, Xflow reported assisting Indian businesses in receiving payments from more than 100 nations in over 25 different currencies. It processed nearly $1 billion in annualized cross-border payment volume last year, indicating approximately a 10-fold increase from the identical period in 2024, Balaji informed TechCrunch.
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As per the company, its clientele has grown to approximately 15,000 businesses, encompassing SaaS enterprises, global capability centers (offshore units operated by multinational corporations in India), IT services exporters, freelancers, and fintech platforms.
Transaction values exhibit considerable variation across segments, with global capability centers averaging around $1 million to $2 million per operation, goods exporters roughly $30,000 to $40,000, and independent contractors approximately $3,000, according to Balaji.
Xflow positions itself as a payments infrastructure provider rather than a direct payment application, offering Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that allow platforms and exporters to integrate international money transfers into their proprietary products.
“Our aim wasn’t to construct the next Wise — we aspire to empower a thousand future Wises,” Balaji articulated.
The emerging company has also unveiled an AI-powered foreign exchange utility to assist finance departments in optimizing the timing of currency conversions. Xflow asserts that this functionality has yielded incremental advantages for certain customers through data-informed foreign exchange decisions.
This utility enables businesses to define desired conversion rates instead of simply accepting current bank quotes. Balaji drew a parallel between this feature and limit orders in trading — instructions to buy or sell only at a predetermined price.
“What we’ve incorporated is the predictive layer and the capability to actually establish a limit order,” he explained. The model currently delivers a three-day forecast with an approximate 92% confidence level, Balaji mentioned, although TechCrunch was unable to independently corroborate this figure.
Xflow contends with competition from banks, which still dominate substantial cross-border B2B transfers, as well as fintech participants such as Wise, Payoneer, and Skydo in the lower segment of the market. However, Balaji stated that the startup’s emphasis on high-value transactions and an API-centric infrastructure distinguishes it from numerous competitors.
The startup intends to allocate the fresh capital towards developing supplementary products atop its foundational payments infrastructure and securing regulatory authorizations in new territories, Balaji disclosed. Xflow is preparing to introduce import functionalities in the forthcoming months and is pursuing licenses in Canada and Singapore, even as it maintains its focus on India as its primary market.
Xflow has also obtained preliminary approval from the Reserve Bank of India for a Payment Aggregator–Cross Border (PA-CB) license, encompassing both exports and imports. The startup further maintains platform collaborations with Easebuzz and Drip Capital to embed its cross-border capabilities into their respective offerings.
Support from Stripe and PayPal Ventures, Balaji noted, has contributed to bolstering the startup’s credibility with banking and regulatory collaborators, even as it continues to engage with multiple payment providers on a commercial basis.
The startup presently employs around 65 individuals as it scales its international infrastructure business.
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