About this episode

In today’s episode,  I have the privilege to speak with Akash Sinha, co-founder and CEO of Cashfree - a leading payments platform in India. Founded in 2015, Cashfree has rapidly ascended from start up to become one of India’s most successful fintechs. Akash explains how he and co-founder Reeju Datta built Cashfree to provide a full stack payments solution enabling businesses in India to collect payments and make payouts via all available methods with a single integration. The company now has more than 50% market share of payment disbursals in India. We discuss how huge the Indian market has become. The volumes involved are quite staggering, and even more so when you consider that online payment volumes are set to grow by a further 3x over the next 5 years. This is an incredible story of growth in a super-sized market. We cover a lot of ground in this in depth and frank discussion, so I do hope you enjoy this conversation with Akash Sinha from Cashfree.

Listen to the episode

Episode Links

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sinhaakash/

Website: https://www.cashfree.com/

Guest Bio

Akash Sinha co-founded Cashfree Payments, a leading payment and banking technology firm in 2015 with his friend Reeju Datta, to solve the challenges faced by businesses in bulk payments and disbursals. Before launching Cashfree Payments, Akash worked with e-commerce giants such as Amazon and BankBazaar where he built products as a Software Engineer.

With his experience as a programmer and product owner, Akash focuses on the intersection of technology and business opportunities. A community builder in the startup and entrepreneur space, he is passionate about cutting-edge tech that can help businesses experiment, scale and innovate faster.

A graduate of International Institute of Information Technology – Hyderabad (IIIT-H), Akash started his first company while still in college, and he takes that legacy forward by building cutting-edge payment products and solutions for businesses. His entrepreneurial journey began shortly after completing his graduation in Computer Science and Engineering from IIIT  where he was selected for the prestigious Google Summer of Code (GSoC), an international annual program in which Google awards stipends to students who successfully complete a free and open-source software coding project during the summer.

In early 2021, Akash was featured in the highly respected Forbes India 30 Under 30 list.

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Company Profile                                                      

Founded in 2015 by Akash Sinha and Reeju Datta, Cashfree Payments is a leading and fast-growing payments and API banking solutions company, based in Bangalore. Cashfree Payments provides a full stack payments solution enabling businesses in India to collect payments and make payouts via all available methods with a single integration. Cashfree Payments is the leading payment processor for payment disbursals with more than 50% market share.

Cashfree Payments was founded with the vision of enabling businesses in India to accept and disburse payments around the clock. At present, it is amongst the leading payment service providers in India processing transactions worth USD 40 billion annually.

With the mission to use innovative technology & excellent service to provide the best payment experience to users, Cashfree Payments has so far launched 20+ products with 6 industry-firsts, and continues to innovate to advance digital payments in India and across the globe. Cashfree Payment has also been a pioneer in banking transactions via API or API Banking, which leads a rapid technological shift in global fintech.

Cashfree Payments works with more than 300,000 companies to offer solutions such as payment collections, vendor payouts, wage payouts, bulk refunds, expense reimbursements, loyalty, and rewards.

Incubated by payments pioneer PayPal, Cashfree Payments is backed by Apis Partners, Smilegate and the famed Silicon-Valley startup accelerator Y-Combinator, Cashfree Payments has been profitable since 2016). India's leading lender, the State Bank of India (SBI) has recently made a strategic  investment in the organisation to reinforce the shared vision of promoting digital modes of payments.

Through partnerships with brands like Zomato, Cred, Nykaa, Delhivery, Acko and Shell Cashfree Payments has  launched several personalized products and solutions for specific business use cases to elevate end-user experiences. Cashfree Payments works closely with all leading banks to build the core payments and banking infrastructure that powers the company’s products, and  is also integrated with major platforms such as Shopify, Wix, Paypal, Amazon Pay, Paytm and Google Pay. Apart from India, Cashfree Payments’ products are used in  eight other countries including  the USA, Canada and the UAE

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