FinTech

Redesigning finance for the next billion –– discover new-age fintech ideas focused on closing credit gaps, personalizing wealth, and building on top of India’s digital rails.

Reimagining Insurance: AI-Powered Efficiency for a Mass Market Opportunity

Nearly half of every insurance premium paid by consumers doesn’t go toward claims. Around 35-40% is consumed by operational inefficiencies, as insurers rely on outdated technology and manual processes across product creation, sales, underwriting, and claims management. An additional 10-15% is lost to fraudulent claims, driving up costs for honest policyholders. This presents a massive opportunity to build a modern, AI-driven insurance company that operates with far greater efficiency. India remains severely underinsured, largely due to the limited paying capacity of consumers. A low-cost, technology-first insurer could unlock access to insurance for the 700M+ lower-middle-income segment, bringing financial security to millions. With AI automation and data-driven underwriting, now is the perfect time to reimagine insurance - making it affordable, efficient, and scalable for a vast, untapped market.

The DPI Revolution: A Population-Scale Opportunity for Entrepreneurs & Investors

India’s Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) has unlocked an unprecedented total addressable market (TAM) for entrepreneurs and investors. UPI is used by over 400 million Indians daily, while Aadhaar covers nearly 1.25 billion people. Platforms like DigiYatra, ONDC, and DigiLocker already serve hundreds of millions, creating a foundation for large-scale digital innovation. This DPI-driven ecosystem enables entrepreneurs to build technology solutions at population scale—offering healthcare, loans, insurance, and consumer products to hundreds of millions. It also presents a massive opportunity to provide working capital to over 50 million SMEs. Today’s unicorns—Lenskart, FirstCry, Curefit, Zomato, and Swiggy—reach between 30 to 100 million consumers. The next wave of billion-dollar revenue companies will emerge by leveraging DPI as a platform like never before. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for entrepreneurs and investors to build scalable, transformative technology startups.

Beyond Digital: Data Empowerment to Bridge India's Financial Divide

India’s fragmented financial landscape, where access to services remains uneven despite a digital boom, underscores an urgent need for a transformative approach that traditional systems have struggled to deliver. With Account Aggregator and Finternet, we believe that empowering individuals and businesses with secure, consent-driven control over their financial data can break down these barriers, ignite innovation, and propel economic inclusion forward.

Beyond the Elite: Building Inclusive Finance for a Growing India

The economic disparity in India, where low-income individuals lack the same opportunities as their affluent counterparts, is a critical issue that demands innovative solutions. To bridge this gap, there's a pressing need for startups focused on democratizing finance and investment, providing accessible tools and platforms for all. Embracing blockchain and Web3 technologies presents a unique opportunity for India to lead in this emerging sector.

AI-Powered Wealth: Tailoring Investments for India's Underserved.

With only 27% of Indians actively investing in financial markets, as per a 2023 SEBI report, the need to bridge the gap between complex financial options and individual empowerment has never been more critical. Building a personalized finance and investment platform that blends cutting-edge technology with human advice, powered by AA-driven financial data, could unlock tailored wealth-building opportunities, addressing this underserved majority and revolutionizing financial decision-making in India.

The 60% Gap: Why India's Small Businesses Struggle for Credit

Despite lending innovations, access to fast, affordable credit remains a challenge for individuals and businesses, with over 60% of small enterprises in India still unable to secure formal loans at competitive rates, according to the MSME Ministry’s 2023 report. They struggle to obtain readily available capital with instant disbursement and low costs. A platform aggregating pre-approved sanctions from various lenders, leveraging financial and non-financial data, could solve this, streamlining access and transforming the credit landscape.

The Future of Finance: Automation Over Literacy

While financial literacy remains a significant challenge, financial automation presents a compelling opportunity to bypass this hurdle. Building a startup that comprehensively automates the financial backend for middle-class individuals, encompassing bill payments, savings, and wealth management, could revolutionize personal finance. This approach would proactively manage finances, removing the burden of manual oversight and fostering financial well-being through automated, intelligent systems.

AI-Powered Financial Coaching: The Future of Personal Finance

I envision building a personal financial coach for consumers. With AA data now accessible, an AI-driven solution could help individuals navigate their finances more effectively, offering personalized guidance to achieve financial wellness.

AI-Driven Fintech for Bharat

An AI-first financial services platform has the potential to revolutionize access to credit, insurance, and wealth solutions for Bharat’s underserved segments—from SMEs to farmers. The key to building a large fintech in India lies in establishing high financial trust at the right CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost). With AI layered on top of India Stack, startups can craft personalized, cost-efficient financial journeys that were previously unfeasible. However, success will hinge on seamlessly integrating 'phygital' touchpoints to build confidence and accessibility for these users. A fintech that gets this right could truly be a cornerstone of Viksit Bharat—bridging gaps and driving deep financial inclusion at scale.

Beyond Borders: Crypto Rails Solve India's Remittance Friction

The friction inherent in cross-border remittances from North America to India—complexity, cost, and time—creates a strong case for alternative solutions. Stablecoins and crypto rails offer a potential pathway to a vastly superior user experience, addressing the pain points of traditional transfer methods.

The Infrastructure Deficit: Holding Back India's Wealth Management Boom

The rapid expansion of the wealth management sector has created a noticeable lag in its underlying infrastructure. A significant opportunity exists for the development of modern, technology-driven infrastructure solutions. Leveraging new technologies, founders can address the evolving demands of the market, enhancing efficiency, accessibility, and security.

Fingerprints, Faces, and Voice: The Future of Payment is Biometric

Biometrics will transform the future of payments. We're looking at a future where making payments becomes ridiculously convenient, and even more secure than they are today. Imagine a world where you no longer need to remember passwords, enter card details, or sift through OTPs. Instead, your face, fingerprint, or even your voice becomes your payment key. Biometric payments leverage a person's unique physical traits to authenticate transactions, offering a built-in security system that’s nearly impossible to replicate. While this promises a frictionless payment experience, security remains a crucial factor. Protecting biometric data requires robust encryption solutions to ensure that biometric templates cannot be reverse-engineered or exploited. The future is clear: much more convenient, secure and technologically advanced payment processing, with the use of biometrics. This presents an opportunity for new-age companies to innovate in the biometric payments space to ensure this is done right!

India's Data Shield: Building RegTech for DPDP Compliance

OneTrust for India – A RegTech business focused on DPDP compliance and data security for BFSI and other regulated industries. The rollout of GDPR in the EU (2018) spurred a wave of company creation in the RegTech space, and India's DPDP Law (2023) appears poised to do the same. The publicly available information on India's DPDP Law (2023) suggests that compliance will be onerous, with companies already conducting preliminary audits. A business that integrates DPDP compliance, cyber monitoring, and cyber insurance could tap into this emerging need and build a sizeable business.

Rise of Personalization: The Future of Fintech

We’ve made significant strides in building the Fintech infrastructure layer, driven by Digital Public Goods like UPI and ONDC. With the RBI and banks preparing for digital currencies and AI advancing data processing, we now have a solid base infrastructure to enable personalization at scale. Looking ahead, I believe the next decade will see some of the most impactful startups emerging around this theme of personalization: Financial Services Personalization – Until now, financial products like insurance, savings, lending, and wealth management have required a critical mass of consumers to be viable. With deeper digital penetration, we’ll see hyper-personalized financial services tailored to smaller segments, embedding cross-category offerings (insurance, credit, savings, etc.) while remaining cost-effective at scale. Healthcare & Medicine Personalization – Advances in AI-driven testing, simulations, and data processing will pave the way for personalized treatments, faster diagnoses, and more precise healthcare solutions. Likewise, there will be many more areas around consumption that will thrive on the overall theme of personalization.

Navigating Complexity: International Investments in Indian Startups

There's a clear need for a platform that simplifies investment in Indian startups for non-Indian investors. The current system is overly complex, burdened by regulations surrounding DEMAT accounts, income tax refunds, and fund repatriation. A platform that consolidates and manages these processes would significantly reduce the overhead for international investors, making Indian startups more accessible to global capital.