Upasana Taku - THE INCLUSIVE PATH

The co-founder of MobikKwik on financial inclusion and underserved markets, their vision for the future, and living with competition

“I have realised from Day 1,” says Upasana Taku, co-founder of the fintech company MobiKwik, “that most people will try to pull entrepreneurs down. Now it is less so, because the startup culture has become better acknowledged.

“It was different at a time when there weren’t so many investors. You had to put up your own money. It was harder, it wasn’t cool and almost a fool’s errand. So this journey of 14 years that we completed recently has been despite detractors saying yeh nahin hoga, mat karo (this isn’t going to happen, don’t do it).”

One MobiKwik Systems Pvt. Ltd, the company started by her husband Bipin Preet Singh in 2009 (Taku joined later as a co-founder), showed revenue of ₹561 crore for the financial year 2023. It has over 140 million users, four million merchants and retailers on the platform. Their four offices, including the head office in Gurugram, Haryana, employ about a thousand people.

MobiKwik is today one of the largest players in the space of mobile wallets and buy now pay later (BPNL) in India. With about 70% of their users from tier 2, 3, 4 cities, a majority of them in the age group of 25-38, the company’s focus is on financial inclusion and underserved markets, rural areas and lower-income sections.

“If you are convinced you want to climb Mount Everest, or any peak for that matter, and a hundred people coming down that hill are telling you that you won’t be able to get to the peak, my advice is that if you have patience and conviction, you should not listen to others. They can’t stop you from working hard. If you just keep at it, you will ultimately reach the peak you desire,” she says.