Cashfree Payments raises $53 million led by Krafton to fuel geographic expansion and innovation

By Ritu Singh   February 8, 2025, 12:10:33 AM IST (Published)

Payments company Cashfree Payments has secured $53 million (approximately ₹450 crore) in a funding round led by Korean digital entertainment giant, Krafton.

The fresh capital will be used to drive product innovation, market expansion, and global growth. With the funding, Cashfree aims to further strengthen its position in the digital payments landscape and enhance its offerings for businesses worldwide.

Currently, Cashfree processes over $80 billion annually, serving over 800,000 businesses, from emerging internet startups to established public enterprises. This growth is underpinned by the company’s focus on four key pillars of investment: payment infrastructure, merchant experience, customer experience, and international expansion.

Speaking to CNBC-TV18, Akash Sinha, CEO of Cashfree Payments, said, “On payment infrastructure, we already went live with a product like UPI Switch, and we’re trying to do more and more such infrastructure-led development by being closer to the issuers and networks. On merchant experience, the idea has been to, how do we make it much easier for merchant to access Cashfree, so that’s where we have product like instant settlement, secure ID.”

He added, “For customer experience, our product One Click Checkout has become a phenomenal hit in the market and that is targeting D2C merchants. At the same time, we believe there is a lot more we can do to evolve customer experience for the ones who are using the Cashfree platform, and that’s where you’re going to invest in a lot more energy in the next two years. The fourth is international expansion, and that is also pretty big. We acquired a stake in a company in the UAE three years back, and this year the plan has been to scale it up, be one of the market leaders in that market, and that is where I think significant focus will also be spent as part of this financing round- in expanding the international market, starting from the UAE going to KSA and four other markets which are part of the Middle East region.”

Krafton, known for its dominance in the digital entertainment and gaming sectors, has become an important partner for Cashfree as the company looks to tap into the growing digital content and consumption market in India. With the rise of e-commerce, travel, and financial services, Cashfree has been helping businesses in these sectors, and the partnership with Krafton aims to strengthen its position in the digital content space. Sinha noted that Krafton’s expertise in the B2C business and the growing digital consumption market in India makes it a strategic ally for Cashfree as the company prepares for the upcoming boom in the industry.

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