Stripe and PayPal Ventures are betting on Indian company Xflow to fix cross-border B2B payments

Xflow, an Indian fintech startup, has received backing from Stripe and PayPal Ventures in a $16.6 million funding round. The investment comes as the company works to carve out a niche in cross-border B2B payments, a market still dominated by banks and manual processes.

General Catalyst led the Series A round, with participation from existing investors Square Peg, Stripe, Lightspeed and Moore Capital, while PayPal Ventures joined as a new backer. The full equity round values ​​the Bengaluru-based startup at $85 million post investment, bringing its total funding to more than $32 million to date.

Despite the rapid digital transformation in domestic payments, cross-border B2B transfers for Indian exporters remain highly dependent on banks, and often have limited visibility into fees, settlement timelines, and the final rupee amount received. Friction is particularly acute for large exporters moving millions of dollars into India to fund payrolls and local operations, creating an opportunity for fintech infrastructure players like Xflow that promise greater transparency and speed in the movement of international funds.

Founded in 2021, Xflow provides cross-border payment infrastructure to businesses ranging from issuers 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 era compared to UPI,” co-founder Anand Balaji (pictured above, center) said in an interview, referring to India’s widely used instant domestic payments network, the Unified Payments Interface.

Balaji, who previously helped build Stripe’s business in India, founded Xflow with former Stripe colleagues Ashwin Bhatnagar (pictured above, right) and Abhijit Chandrasekaran (pictured above, left).

Last year, Xflow said it enabled Indian companies to collect payments from more than 100 countries in more than 25 currencies. It processed nearly $1 billion in annual cross-border payment volume last year, representing about 10-fold growth compared to the same period in 2024, Balaji told TechCrunch.

According to the company, its client base has expanded to include around 15,000 companies that include SaaS companies, global capability centers (offshore units that MNCs operate in India), IT service exporters, freelancers, and fintech platforms.

Transaction sizes vary widely by sector, with global capacity centers averaging about $1 million to $2 million per transaction, commodity exporters about $30,000 to $40,000, and freelancers about $3,000, according to Balaji.

Xflow is positioning itself as a payments infrastructure provider rather than a direct payments app, offering application programming interfaces (APIs) that allow platforms and issuers to embed the cross-border movement of funds into their own products.

“We didn’t want to build the next sages, we wanted to power the next thousand sages,” Balaji said.

The startup also introduced an AI-based foreign exchange tool to help finance teams improve the timing of currency conversions. Xflow says the feature has generated additional gains for some customers through data-driven foreign exchange decisions.

The tool allows businesses to set target conversion rates instead of accepting prevailing bank quotes. Balaji likened this feature to limit orders in trading – instructions to buy or sell at a specific price only.

“What we’ve added is a forecasting layer and the ability to actually place a limit order,” he said. The model currently provides a three-day forecast with about 92% confidence, Balaji said, though TechCrunch was unable to independently verify that number.

Xflow faces competition from banks that still dominate large cross-border B2B transfers, as well as fintech companies like 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 competitors.

Balaji said the startup plans to deploy the fresh capital towards building additional products in addition to the core payments infrastructure and securing regulatory licenses in new markets. Xflow is preparing to roll out import capabilities in the coming months and is seeking licenses in markets including Singapore, while it already holds a payments license in Canada, even as it continues to focus on India as its main market.

Xflow said it has also received final clearance from the Reserve Bank of India for a Payment Aggregator Cross-Border (PA-CB) license covering exports and imports. The startup has signed platform partnerships with Easebuzz and Drip Capital to integrate its cross-border capabilities into their offerings.

Balaji said support from Stripe and PayPal Ventures helped boost the startup’s credibility with banking and regulatory partners, even as it continues to work with multiple payment service providers commercially.

The startup currently has about 65 employees as it expands its cross-border infrastructure business.