Prosus in Talks With Kiwi, Oolka: Reports

Economic Times reported on 7 October 2026 that Amsterdam-listed investor Prosus has held exploratory funding talks with credit-on-UPI startup Kiwi. Separately, Moneycontrol reported on 6 October that Prosus could join a proposed Oolka round. Neither investment has been announced or closed. The discussions are at different stages, with Prosus’ conversations with Kiwi described as exploratory while negotiations with Oolka are reportedly more advanced.

The potential investments would broaden Prosus’ direct exposure to India’s financial-services technology market beyond its established PayU business and recent investment in Navi. They also highlight two themes attracting venture capital in Indian fintech: the expansion of consumer credit through digital payments and the use of artificial intelligence to help consumers manage increasingly complex financial products.

Key takeaways

• Prosus is in exploratory discussions to invest in Kiwi, according to people familiar with the matter.
• Kiwi is seeking around $30–40 million in fresh funding.
• Kiwi offers bank-issued RuPay credit cards and credit lines that can be used through UPI.
• Moneycontrol reports that Prosus may participate in Oolka’s advanced funding talks; the parties have not confirmed a deal.
• Oolka is reportedly raising about $40–50 million at a post-money valuation of around $200 million.
• Bessemer Venture Partners is expected to invest about $20 million in Oolka, while Prosus could contribute roughly $10 million.
• Prosus recently announced a proposed $100 million investment in Navi.
• The investor has also been reported to be in discussions involving fintech startups such as Bachatt and Vegapay.
• The emerging strategy points to a wider Prosus push across Indian credit, lending, savings and AI-led financial services.

Prosus is building a wider fintech portfolio

Prosus has historically had a major presence in Indian digital payments through PayU, but its recent investment activity suggests that the company wants exposure to a much broader financial-services ecosystem.

The investor has recently backed or explored opportunities across payments, lending, housing finance, savings and consumer financial management.

If the separately reported discussions advance, Kiwi and Oolka would fit into that broader strategy.

Rather than concentrating only on payment processing, Prosus is increasingly looking at companies that can build customer relationships around financial products. These businesses can potentially generate revenue through credit, lending, financial services and other products layered on top of large consumer user bases.

That approach is important in India because digital payments have created a huge distribution infrastructure, while credit and other financial products remain significantly less penetrated than basic payments.

Kiwi is seeking up to $40 million

Kiwi is one of the two fintech companies now attracting Prosus’ attention.

The Bengaluru-based startup provides bank-issued RuPay credit cards and credit lines that can be used for UPI payments. It was founded by Anup Agarwal, Mohit Bedi and Siddharth Mehta and has positioned itself around the emerging “credit on UPI” opportunity.

According to The Economic Times, Kiwi is looking to raise around $30–40 million. The proposed financing would be its largest funding round since it raised $24 million in August 2025, when Singapore-based Vertex Ventures led the round.

Prosus has subsequently held exploratory discussions about participating in the new financing.

Importantly, there is no confirmed Prosus investment in Kiwi yet. The discussions are still at an early stage, meaning the size of Prosus’ potential cheque, valuation and even whether the transaction will close remain uncertain.

Why Kiwi’s credit-on-UPI model matters

Kiwi operates at the intersection of two major parts of India’s financial infrastructure: UPI and consumer credit.

UPI has become the country’s dominant digital-payments rail, but payment transactions themselves have historically offered limited direct monetisation opportunities for many fintech companies because of India’s zero-MDR framework for most UPI transactions.

Credit creates a different economic opportunity.

A consumer can use a RuPay credit card through UPI at participating merchants, allowing the payment infrastructure to become a distribution channel for credit products.

Kiwi’s model involves working with banks rather than functioning as the lender itself. The startup’s role includes the technology and customer relationship layer while partner banks provide the regulated credit products.

That distinction is important because it allows Kiwi to build a consumer-facing fintech platform without becoming the balance-sheet lender for every credit transaction.

Kiwi has already built a sizeable customer base

Kiwi’s earlier disclosures indicate that its model has gained meaningful consumer adoption.

Business Standard reported in January 2025 that Kiwi had more than 1.5 million customers and was adding roughly 300,000–400,000 customers a month at the time. It was also issuing around 10,000–15,000 credit cards each month.

The company reported approximately ₹300 crore in monthly spending, with around 60% of that spending involving credit transactions.

Its customer acquisition strategy is particularly relevant because the company has attempted to combine UPI’s broad merchant acceptance with credit-card economics.

Kiwi’s data also showed that UPI-enabled credit-card users were transacting much more frequently than traditional credit-card users. The company reported an average of about 40 transactions per month among its users in 2024.

The figures are historical rather than current, but they illustrate why the credit-on-UPI category has attracted investors.

Bank partnerships could expand Kiwi’s reach

Kiwi’s strategy also depends heavily on partnerships with banks.

The startup has worked with banks including Axis Bank and Yes Bank, while Punjab National Bank partnered with Kiwi in April 2026 to launch a RuPay-based credit card integrated with UPI.

The PNB partnership was designed to potentially reach the bank’s large customer base, including customers in semi-urban and rural areas.

That type of distribution could be important for Kiwi because the next stage of growth may depend less on proving that credit can work on UPI and more on expanding the number of customers who qualify for and actively use these products.

The company is therefore seeking fresh capital partly to accelerate customer acquisition.

Oolka is taking a different route into fintech

Oolka represents a different part of Prosus’ potential fintech strategy.

Founded in 2024 by Utkrishta Kumar, a former chief experience officer at Meesho, Oolka describes itself as an AI-powered credit-management platform.

Instead of primarily facilitating payments or issuing a financial product, Oolka is building technology designed to help consumers understand and manage their financial obligations.

Its platform focuses on areas including credit scores, loans and EMIs, while the company has been expanding toward a broader consumer financial-management platform.

That makes Oolka particularly interesting in the context of the growing use of AI in financial services.

Oolka is reportedly raising $40–50 million

Moneycontrol reported that Oolka is in advanced discussions to raise approximately $45 million from Bessemer Venture Partners, Prosus and existing investors.

Under the reported structure, Bessemer could invest around $20 million, while Prosus could contribute roughly $10 million. Existing investors, including Accel and Lightspeed, are expected to provide the balance.

Oolka is reportedly being valued at around $200 million post-money.

That would represent a substantial increase from its approximately $90 million valuation reported in April 2026.

The proposed transaction is not yet a completed financing. The figures remain subject to negotiations and could change before the round closes.

Oolka had previously raised $14 million in a Series A round led by Accel in April 2026, with Lightspeed and Z47 also participating.

At that time, the company said it had crossed $2.5 million in annual recurring revenue and had more than six million registered users.

AI could become the common thread

The potential Oolka investment also gives a clue about where Prosus may see the next phase of fintech growth.

Traditional fintech companies often use technology to make financial transactions faster or cheaper. The next generation is increasingly attempting to use AI to help consumers make decisions.

Oolka’s model is built around AI agents that can identify credit-related problems and guide users toward potential solutions.

The company has said it intends to expand beyond credit into a broader financial operating system for consumers.

For investors, this creates a potentially larger market opportunity. A platform that helps users with credit scores could eventually expand into loans, insurance, investments, savings and other financial decisions.

However, that expansion also creates execution challenges.

Financial advice and credit decisions involve sensitive consumer data, regulatory considerations and the need for high levels of accuracy. An AI system that makes incorrect recommendations can potentially cause financial harm, meaning trust and compliance will be as important as technological capability.

Prosus has already made a major Navi bet

The Kiwi and Oolka discussions follow a much larger Prosus investment proposal in Indian fintech.

In August 2026, Prosus announced a proposed $100 million investment in Navi. The transaction was described as Navi’s first institutional capital raise and remains subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.

Prosus said Navi’s UPI business had become India’s fourth-largest UPI app during FY26, while Navi Finserv’s assets under management had crossed ₹130 billion.

The investment therefore gives Prosus exposure to a financial-services company that combines payments, lending, insurance and investment products.

This is strategically different from a pure payments investment because Navi can potentially capture multiple parts of the consumer financial journey.

Bachatt and Vegapay add to the pattern

Prosus’ interest in Kiwi and Oolka is also not happening in isolation.

Moneycontrol previously reported that Prosus was in discussions to invest in Bachatt, a micro-savings and investment platform, and Vegapay, a fintech infrastructure company.

The reported Bachatt transaction involved a potential $10–12 million Prosus investment as part of a larger roughly $30 million round.

Bachatt would give Prosus exposure to the savings and micro-investing segment, while companies such as Vegapay represent the infrastructure layer behind financial products.

Taken together, the reported investments point toward a broader strategy rather than a single fintech theme.

Prosus appears to be looking across the financial stack: payments, credit, lending, savings, infrastructure and consumer financial management.

Why India remains attractive to Prosus

Prosus’ own India strategy provides context for the renewed fintech activity.

The company says it has invested more than $8 billion across more than 30 Indian companies over the past decade. Its Indian portfolio includes businesses such as PayU, Meesho, Swiggy, Urban Company and Rapido.

The scale of India’s digital consumer market gives Prosus an opportunity to back businesses that can potentially reach hundreds of millions of customers.

Fintech is particularly attractive because the same digital infrastructure can support multiple financial products.

A consumer who initially uses UPI for payments can potentially become a credit-card customer, borrower, saver, insurance customer or investment user.

For investors, that creates the possibility of increasing revenue per customer over time rather than relying exclusively on new-user acquisition.

The challenge is moving from growth to sustainable economics

India’s fintech market has matured significantly, but investors are no longer likely to fund growth at any cost.

The key questions for Kiwi and Oolka will be customer acquisition costs, monetisation, credit quality where applicable, retention and regulatory compliance.

For Kiwi, credit-card usage and customer acquisition must translate into sustainable economics while partner-bank relationships remain strong.

For Oolka, the challenge is proving that consumers will pay for or generate sufficient economic value from AI-driven financial-management services.

The distinction is important because large user numbers alone do not guarantee a profitable fintech business.

A more selective fintech funding market

The renewed activity also comes after a period in which Indian startup investors became more selective.

Moneycontrol has reported a cluster of fintech fundraising discussions across lending, payments, savings, wealth management and insurance during the past several months.

That does not mean capital has returned uniformly across the startup ecosystem.

Instead, investors appear to be concentrating on companies with clearer monetisation opportunities, differentiated technology, strong distribution or exposure to large financial markets.

Prosus’ reported interest in Kiwi and Oolka fits that pattern.

Kiwi has an established position in credit-on-UPI, while Oolka is attempting to use AI to create a new consumer financial-management category.

What Prosus is really betting on

The broader signal from these discussions is that Prosus is not simply betting on another wave of digital payments.

It is betting on what can be built after digital payments have already become mainstream.

UPI provides the transaction layer. The opportunity now is to use that digital relationship to offer additional financial products.

Credit is one layer. Savings and investments are another. AI-powered financial management could become yet another layer.

If these businesses succeed, a consumer could potentially interact with several financial services through a single technology platform.

That is the larger opportunity behind Prosus’ expanding fintech portfolio.

The Bigger Picture

Prosus’ reported discussions with Kiwi and Oolka show how India’s fintech investment landscape is evolving from a payments-first story into a broader consumer-finance opportunity. Kiwi is attempting to turn UPI into a distribution channel for credit, while Oolka is using AI to help consumers manage credit and other financial decisions.

The common factor is the ability to build deeper relationships with consumers after the initial digital-payment interaction. Prosus’ announced Navi proposal and reported interest in Bachatt and Vegapay reinforce the same direction: the investor is building exposure across multiple layers of India’s financial-services technology stack.

For the Indian fintech ecosystem, this could mean more capital for companies that can demonstrate clear paths from user growth to monetisation. But the next phase is likely to be more demanding. Investors will increasingly look beyond downloads and transaction volumes toward recurring revenue, credit quality, customer retention, regulatory resilience and sustainable margins.

Looking Ahead

The immediate question is whether Prosus ultimately converts its discussions with Kiwi and Oolka into completed investments. Kiwi’s talks are still exploratory, while Oolka’s negotiations are reportedly further along, so neither transaction should yet be treated as a confirmed funding round.

If the deals close, however, they would strengthen Prosus’ position across two of India’s fastest-developing fintech themes: digital credit and AI-powered financial management. Combined with the investor’s recent Navi commitment and other reported fintech discussions, the moves suggest that Prosus sees India’s next major fintech opportunity not simply in moving money, but in helping consumers borrow, save, manage and make decisions about their money digitally.

Sources and verification

Economic Times reported the Kiwi discussions on 7 October, citing unnamed people. Moneycontrol independently reported the Oolka discussions on 6 October, also citing unnamed people and noting that the companies did not respond to its questions. The Prosus announcement on Navi verifies only that separate proposed investment. No first-party record yet confirms either Kiwi or Oolka transaction, and financing terms may change or talks may end without a deal.