Xflow, an Indian fintech startup, has secured backing from both Stripe and PayPal Ventures in a $16.6 million funding round. The investment comes as the company works to establish a position in cross-border B2B payments, a market still dominated by banks and manual processes.
The Series A round was led by General Catalyst with participation from existing investors Square Peg, Stripe, Lightspeed and Moore Capital, while PayPal Ventures joined as a new backer. The all-equity round values ​​the Bengaluru-based startup at $85 million post-investment and brings its total funding to more than $32 million to date.
Despite rapid digitization of domestic payments, cross-border B2B transfers for Indian exporters remain heavily dependent on banks, often with limited insight into fees, settlement timelines and the final amount received in rupees. The friction is particularly acute for major exporters who move millions of dollars to India to fund wages and local operations, creating an opening for fintech infrastructure players such as Xflow, which promise greater transparency and speed in international money movement.
Founded in 2021, Xflow provides cross-border payments infrastructure to businesses ranging from exporters and SaaS companies to platforms and freelancers, enabling them to collect international payments, manage foreign exchange and settle funds in India.
“Cross-border B2B payments were stuck in a different age compared to UPI,” co-founder Anand Balaji (pictured above, center) said in an interview, referring to India’s widely used domestic instant payment network, Unified Payments Interface.
Balaji, who previously helped build Stripe’s India business, co-founded Xflow with former Stripe colleagues Ashwin Bhatnagar (pictured top right) and Abhijit Chandrasekaran (pictured top left).
Last year, Xflow said it enabled Indian businesses to collect payments from more than 100 countries in over 25 currencies. It processed close to $1 billion in annualized cross-border payment volume last year, marking roughly 10-fold growth from the same period in 2024, Balaji told TechCrunch.
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According to the company, its customer base has expanded to around 15,000 companies spanning SaaS companies, global capability centers (which are offshore units that multinational companies operate in India), IT service exporters, freelancers and fintech platforms.
Transaction sizes vary widely by segment, with global capacity centers averaging around $1 million to $2 million per transaction, commodity exporters around $30,000 to $40,000 and freelancers around $3,000, according to Balaji.
Xflow positions itself as a payment infrastructure provider rather than a direct payment application, offering APIs that allow platforms and exporters to integrate cross-border money movements into their own products.
“We didn’t want to build the next Wise — we want to power the next thousand Wises,” Balaji said.
The startup has also introduced an AI-based currency tool to help finance teams optimize the timing of currency conversions. Xflow says the feature has generated incremental gains for some clients through data-driven currency decisions.
The tool allows companies to set target conversion rates instead of accepting current bank offers. Balaji likened the feature to limit orders in trading – instructions to buy or sell only at a certain price.
“What we’ve added is the prediction layer and the ability to actually set a limit order,” he said. The model currently provides a three-day forecast with about 92% confidence, Balaji said, although TechCrunch could not independently confirm that figure.
Xflow faces competition from banks, which still dominate large cross-border B2B transfers, as well as fintech players such as Wise, Payoneer and Skydo at the lower end of the market. But Balaji said the startup’s focus on high-value transactions and API-led infrastructure sets it apart from many rivals.
The startup plans to use the new capital to build additional products on top of its core payments infrastructure and secure regulatory licenses in emerging markets, Balaji said. Xflow is preparing to roll out import capabilities in the coming months and is pursuing licenses in markets including Singapore, while it already has a payments license in Canada, although it remains focused on India as its primary market.
Xflow said it has also received final approval from the Reserve Bank of India for a Payment Aggregator-Cross Border (PA-CB) license covering both exports and imports. The startup has entered into platform partnerships with Easebuzz and Drip Capital to integrate its cross-border capabilities into their offering.
Backing from Stripe and PayPal Ventures, Balaji said, has helped bolster the startup’s credibility with banking and regulatory partners, even as it continues to work with more payment providers commercially.
The startup currently has around 65 employees as it scales its cross-border infrastructure business.