Mumbai-based Knight FinTech has emerged as a critical infrastructure player in India's lending stack, securing $23.6 million in a Series A round led by Accel. While consumer apps fight for UPI market share, Knight is quietly upgrading the back-office engines that power over 85 banks and NBFCs.
The round saw participation from IIFL, Rocket Capital, and existing backers including Prime Venture Partners, 3one4 Capital, and Trifecta Capital.
The Deal Sheet
Kushal Rastogi
Co-Founder
Parthesh Shah, CFA
Co-Founder
The 'Iron Man' Suit for Banks
Legacy banks struggle with fragmented tech stacks. Creating a co-lending product usually involves months of API integration, regulatory compliance checks, and setting up real-time reconciliation engines. Knight FinTech positions itself as the middleware layer that solves this complexity out of the box.
By providing a unified stack, they enable banks to partner with NBFCs and fintechs instantly. The platform powers co-lending, embedded finance, and treasury management.
The scale is already massive. The platform manages over $5 billion in AUM and has facilitated $7 billion in cumulative loan disbursements. But the crown jewel is their treasury platform, overseeing a staggering $125 billion in assets. This high volume of trusted data flow suggests that Knight has effectively become the "system of record" for a significant portion of the Indian banking sector.
The Heavy Hitter
In a move signaling serious enterprise intent, Sanat Rao, the former CEO of Infosys Finacle, has joined as an investor and board adviser. Rao’s experience is not trivial; at Finacle, he oversaw the core banking systems that power a large percentage of global banks. His guidance will be pivotal as Knight aims to expand into the Middle East and Asia-Pacific—markets that share similar legacy infrastructure challenges with India.
"We are building the core lending stack for India. The goal isn't just digitization; it's about enabling banks to launch complex co-lending products in days, not months."
FounderStory Takeaway
Infrastructure plays are often undervalued until they become indispensable. Knight FinTech's penetration into 150+ partners suggests they have crossed the "trust barrier" with traditional banks. With Accel's backing, they are poised to become the "Stripe for Lending" in emerging markets. The shift from pure lending to a broader treasury management role provides them with a sticky, recurring revenue moat that few competitors can match.