The Payments Promoter: Upasana Taku

"When I began overseeing the finance department at MobiKwik, there was a situation where we needed to visit a government department to address their queries. After the initial small talk, I was asked to bring along my male co-director. In response, I smiled and answered candidly, informing them that my co-founder was not well-versed in tax-related matters and that either I could take the time to teach my co-founder everything there was to know about the subject, or we could proceed with the conversation and resolve the issue at hand," shares Upasana Taku, Co-Founder & COO, MobiKwik on taking a traditionally male dominated role.

At MobiKwik we are on a mission to build a world-class neobanking platform for Bharat!

Raised in a middle-class Kashmiri Pandit family in Gujarat, she has done her Bachelor's degree in Industrial Engineering from REC Jalandhar and Master's degree in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University. Prior to establishing MobiKwik with Bipin Singh, she counted PayPal and HSBC as her former employers. The initial stage of the fintech startup looked like a mobile recharge payments platform via a wallet as per Bipin. Taku's experience at PayPal helped her significantly, and by February 2010, she had embraced MobiKwik as her baby. However, it wasn't a rosy start. "With a combined capital of 20-40 lakhs, which we had saved over 6-7 years of work experience, we had very little to start with. Moreover, we did not have any support or encouragement from our families to begin our entrepreneurial journey," she adds.

"At MobiKwik we are on a mission to build a world-class neobanking platform for Bharat!" The duo is dedicated towards promoting financial inclusion and catering to the underserved Indian population. The platform has 134 million registered users and is used in 19103 Indian pin codes out of 19253. 54 per cent of the users fall in 18-30 age brackets and 80 per cent are from non-metro cities. The market size of MobiKwik's products and services are expected to reach $2.1 Trillion by 2030. The fintech startup turned profitable in 2021 and ended the FY 2022 with INR 5.4 billion in revenues, recording 80 per cent YoY growth. It has raised $125 million of external capital till date. 25 per cent of the workforce comprises women with the recent appointment of Preety Pandey to lead finance division at MobiKwik.

All this wouldn't have happened had she not gone against her family and quit PayPal and given up her green card to return to India. "I believe that it was one of the bravest and best decisions I could have made for myself," she shares. Taku's one certain special memory will always remain that of being felicitated by the President of India as the First woman to lead a Payments Startup.