Bengaluru-based fintech startup Rupeeflo is positioning GIFT City as a major revenue driver, targeting up to 30% contribution within the next year. According to reports from The Hindu BusinessLine, the company currently derives less than 5% of its revenue from GIFT City institutions and sees significant growth potential. Co-Founder and CEO Dharmendra Maurya stated that if the payments business gains traction, the contribution could reach as high as 40% of total revenue. The company has received in-principle authorisation for a payment service provider (PSP) licence and plans to enter the payments business to connect investor onboarding with money movement into GIFT City and India. As reported during an interaction at GIFT City, Maurya explained that "out of our total revenue, GIFT City institutions will be less than 5 per cent. The way we are growing our revenue, we would like GIFT City to contribute close to 25-30 per cent of the revenue in the next year. If the payment business also grows, the revenue pie could be as big as 40 per cent."
Founded in April 2024 by Maurya, Ashish Jha and Manav Bharambe, Rupeeflo began operations in December that year. As reported by The Hindu BusinessLine, the company reports an annual recurring revenue (ARR) of close to $1.5 million, or approximately ₹14 crore. Maurya indicated the company has doubled its revenue and investor base every quarter since December 2024. The next phase of growth will depend on monetising a broader range of services, from onboarding and compliance to payments and investment distribution. The company's business model rests on three segments: technology-assisted services covering know-your-customer (KYC) checks, onboarding, identity verification and compliance; the proposed payments business; and digital interfaces that allow intermediaries to access products offered by GIFT City institutions.
According to The Hindu BusinessLine, Rupeeflo has built a digital platform that addresses the traditional complexity of overseas investor onboarding. The company claims to reduce account opening from 15-30 days to 24 hours and broking-related onboarding from 30-45 days to 24 hours. The platform verifies investor identities, extracts information from documents, and fills account-opening forms. Additionally, Rupeeflo has partnered with notary offices across more than 60 countries to facilitate electronic notarisation and digital signature certificates that can be issued within around 30 minutes. The proposed payments business will integrate the next step of the process, allowing investors to move funds through the same rails built through the payment service provider licence, creating a more integrated view of investor onboarding and payment compliance. As Maurya explained, "Once the onboarding is completed through our stack, the next thing the investor will be able to do is move the money through the same rails built through our payment service provider licence."
As reported by The Hindu BusinessLine, Rupeeflo initially focused on non-resident Indians (NRIs) and overseas citizens of India (OCIs) but has expanded into onboarding foreign nationals, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs), foreign direct investors and corporate entities. The US, UK and UAE account for about 60% of traffic on its platforms, while the remainder comes from markets including Saudi Arabia, Germany, other European Union countries, Australia and Singapore. NRIs and OCIs continue to account for roughly 90% of customers, with the company having facilitated more than 20,000 investors through its platform via institutional partnerships. The problem Rupeeflo is solving begins well before an overseas investor makes the first investment, as the process can involve repeated exchanges with relationship managers, document verification, notarisation and couriering paperwork to India, with differences in time zones adding further delays. The proposed expansion, however, will depend on the applicable regulatory requirements, the scope of its authorisation and the adoption of its payment infrastructure by financial institutions.
