Startup Deep Dive : CashKaro — it pays users to shop elsewhere and still grew revenue 72% in FY26

Paying a customer to shop somewhere else sounds like a bad business model. CashKaro built a company on exactly that, and by FY26 it was booking ₹600 crore ($62.5 million) in revenue for it, up 72.4% on the year before (Entrackr, May 2026; Inc42, May 2026).

The same company also went almost nowhere for three years right after taking its first big cheque — a stall that, oddly enough, a pandemic helped break. Both halves of that story, the growth and the stall, are on the record and are unpacked below.

Quick facts

What they do

CashKaro is a cashback and coupons platform: shoppers click through its app or website to a partner retailer — Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Nykaa, Ajio and more than 1,500 other brands — buy as they normally would, and get a share of the commission the retailer pays CashKaro back as real cash, transferable to a bank account (CashKaro business-model blog; app store listings). Its sister product, EarnKaro, flips the model for a different user: instead of shopping for themselves, people share affiliate links on WhatsApp, Telegram and Instagram and earn commission when others buy through them, effectively letting anyone become a micro-affiliate without building a website (Entrackr, April 2025).

The origin

Rohan Bhargava and Swati Bhargava met and studied at the London School of Economics, then both went into City careers — Swati spent five years at Goldman Sachs in London (Mastersunion; LinkedIn). Around 2011 they started noticing British newspapers and trade unions promoting cashback sites to their audiences, and built a UK cashback business of their own, Pouring Pounds, working with outlets such as the Daily Mail and the Metro (The Weekend Leader). The insight that followed was simple: if cashback could work as a customer-acquisition channel for retailers in a mature market like the UK, it would work even better in India, where online shopping was still winning people over on trust and price. They launched CashKaro to Indian shoppers in 2013. An early angel round meant to raise $300,000 from their Goldman and LSE network instead pulled in $700,000 within 48 hours, an early signal that the idea resonated with people who knew them (Kalaari CXXO, “My Fundraising Story with Swati Bhargava”). Growth in the first two years was modest by design: users grew from roughly 40,000 to 250,000 a year, and revenue reached only around ₹2 crore by FY15, before Kalaari Capital’s Series A gave the business its first real fuel (Forbes India).

The struggle years

CashKaro’s first real setback did not look like a crisis from the outside — it looked like caution. After Kalaari Capital put in ₹25 crore (about $3.8 million) in November 2015, the company grew revenue to ₹17.56 crore in FY16 and actually turned profitable that year (Forbes India; TechCrunch, November 2015; Business Standard, November 2015). Then, instead of accelerating, it slowed. Swati Bhargava later admitted the mistake in blunt terms: “We should have used our Series A money faster.” Rather than spend aggressively on marketing and hiring, the founders held back capital, and momentum stalled through 2018 (Forbes India).

The second setback was a genuine strategic failure. In 2017, CashKaro tried to expand beyond online affiliate cashback into card-linked offers, tying up with private banks so that cardholders would get cashback automatically at point-of-sale, online or offline. The idea was sound on paper, but reconciling transactions across multiple banks’ and merchants’ POS systems proved too complex to execute well, and the effort did not scale. Rohan Bhargava’s own framing of it afterwards was that experimentation, even the kind that fails, is simply part of building a company (Forbes India). Both setbacks happened while Ratan Tata had already joined as a personal investor in January 2016, roughly two months after the Series A closed — proof that outside confidence in the founders did not, by itself, fix the internal execution problem (YourStory, January 2016; Inc42, January 2016; Business Standard, January 2016).

The turning point

The reset came in 2019, when the founders decided, in their own words, to “step on the gas.” They launched EarnKaro that year to open a second, asset-light revenue line built on individual resellers rather than direct shoppers alone (Forbes India). The bet was still unproven when COVID-19 hit in early 2020 and temporarily gutted CashKaro’s core business: e-commerce deliveries slowed or stopped in the lockdown, and transaction-linked cashback income fell with them. The company’s response, built out within weeks in April and May 2020, was to pivot into deals on categories people could still consume from home — OTT streaming, online learning, gaming and audiobooks. Within the first months of the pivot, those new categories alone made up close to 30% of total revenue, and online education grew sixfold in sales, crossing 5,000 orders in under a month (YourStory, February 2021).

The numbers either side of that pivot tell the story cleanly: CashKaro closed FY20 with revenue of ₹56.91 crore and a loss of ₹7 crore. A year later, helped by the pandemic-era category expansion and a fresh $10 million Series B led by Korea Investment Partners in September 2020, FY21 revenue nearly doubled to roughly ₹105 crore, and the platform said it had crossed 10 million registered users with over ₹500 crore in cumulative user savings by May 2021 (YourStory, February 2021; Forbes India; TechCrunch, September 2020; Inc42, September 2020).

The money behind it

• Angel round (2013-14): Roughly $700,000 raised from the founders’ Goldman Sachs and LSE network — more than double the $300,000 target, within 48 hours (Kalaari CXXO).
• Series A — November 2015: ₹25 crore (about $3.8 million) from Kalaari Capital, CashKaro’s first institutional backer; the capital was earmarked for the CashKaro mobile app and expansion talk toward Southeast Asia, though the bigger effect was giving the company its first outside board-level scrutiny (TechCrunch, November 2015; Business Standard, November 2015).
• Ratan Tata — January 2016: A personal investment roughly two months after the Series A, made while Tata sat on Kalaari’s advisory board; it added reputational weight even though it did not, by itself, fix the 2015-18 growth stall (YourStory, January 2016; Inc42, January 2016).
• Series B — September 2020: $10 million led by Korea Investment Partners, with existing investor Kalaari Capital participating; it arrived mid-pandemic and effectively funded the marketing push and category expansion that produced FY21’s revenue jump (TechCrunch, September 2020; Inc42, September 2020).
• Series C — November 2022: ₹130 crore (about $16 million) led by Affle Global, a Singapore-headquartered mobile ad-tech and consumer-intelligence platform; the round was pitched as deepening a working relationship between CashKaro’s consumer engagement data and Affle’s ad-tech stack, on top of funding technology and CashKaro/EarnKaro’s expansion (YourStory, November 2022; Entrackr, November 2022).
• Cumulative funding: Over ₹250 crore raised in total by the Series C, reported elsewhere on a historical-rate basis as roughly $32.5 million across five rounds; no valuation has been disclosed publicly for any round (Inc42; Entrackr; Tracxn).

How it makes money

The mechanics are a straightforward affiliate pass-through, but the part most users get wrong is where the margin actually sits.

• Money in: Partner retailers pay CashKaro a commission on completed, confirmed purchases made through its links — commission rates vary by category and retailer, and the platform works with 1,500-plus brands (CashKaro business-model blog; company FY25 disclosures via Entrackr and Inc42).
• Money out: CashKaro passes the majority of that commission back to the shopper as cashback rather than keeping it — the retained share, not the gross commission, is CashKaro’s actual revenue (CashKaro business-model blog).
• Where the margin sits: Costs are dominated by cashback payouts to users (over ₹2,000 crore cumulatively by FY26) plus marketing to acquire and retain shoppers; in FY26 the company said it grew marketing spend only 7.6% year-on-year even as revenue grew 72.4%, and held employee and infrastructure costs roughly flat through automation, which is the main reason the loss narrowed (Entrackr, May 2026; Inc42, May 2026).
• The part people get wrong: CashKaro is not primarily a shopping-discounts business anymore in margin terms — referrals into financial products such as credit cards and loans pay a commission per approved lead that is far higher than a typical e-commerce order commission, which is why the finance category punches well above its transaction volume in the revenue mix (see the segment split below) (Inc42, FY24 exclusive report).
• Second engine: EarnKaro monetises the same affiliate relationships through a different channel — resellers rather than end-shoppers — and by FY25 was generating roughly 2.3 billion of the group’s 2.5 billion total tracked leads, run at a much leaner cost base than the flagship consumer app (Entrackr, April 2025).

The numbers

FY24 revenue is reported as ₹302 crore by Inc42 (citing unaudited statements not yet filed with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs) and as ₹290 crore in Entrackr’s FY25 write-up; FY25 revenue is reported as ₹350 crore by both Entrackr and Inc42 in their FY25 coverage, but restated in each outlet’s own FY26 coverage as ₹348 crore. FY25’s EBITDA loss is put at ₹21 crore by Entrackr and ₹21.6 crore by Inc42 in FY25-specific reporting, but both outlets’ later FY26 articles restate it at ₹29.2 crore — the figures are given here as reported, without reconciling the restatement (Inc42, 2023-2026; Entrackr, 2023-2026; BW Disrupt, 2023).

Where the money comes from

The surprise in CashKaro’s revenue mix is how far it has moved from pure e-commerce cashback.

• Electronics and smartphones: about 25% of FY25 revenue — the largest single category, and the one closest to CashKaro’s original coupon-and-cashback identity (Inc42, FY25 report).
• Financial services (credit cards, loans): about 23% of FY25 revenue, up from roughly 20% of revenue in FY24 — high-commission referral leads that require far fewer transactions to generate the same revenue as bulk e-commerce cashback (Inc42, FY25 report; Inc42, FY24 exclusive report).
• Fashion: about 22% of FY25 revenue, spread across apparel and accessories partners (Inc42, FY25 report).
• Beauty and personal care: about 15% of FY25 revenue (Inc42, FY25 report).
• Everything else — grocery, medicines, travel, home and kitchen, and subscriptions — made up the remainder of FY25 revenue (Inc42, FY25 report).
• Direct brand deals: CashKaro has also been signing direct partnerships with brands such as Samsung, boAt and Noise, moving some relationships beyond pure e-commerce affiliate arrangements specifically to improve margin (Inc42, FY25 report).

The risks

• Attribution and tracking risk: cashback depends on a retailer’s own affiliate tracking correctly recording a sale and then confirming it weeks later; a missed tracking pixel, a delayed retailer confirmation, or a cancelled, returned or excluded order means CashKaro earns no commission and pays no cashback on that transaction — a structural feature of affiliate models that shows up directly in user complaints and in the company’s own support documentation (CashKaro app-store and support listings).
• Concentration in a handful of large retail partners: a large share of commission income flows from a small number of major e-commerce marketplaces; because CashKaro does not set those commission rates, a cut in affiliate payouts or a policy change by any one large partner can compress margins across the platform without CashKaro being able to pass the cost on to shoppers.
• Losses have narrowed but not closed: even after cutting its EBITDA loss 40% year-on-year, CashKaro was still loss-making at an EBITDA level in FY26 on ₹600 crore of revenue, which means the business has not yet demonstrated it can sustain itself without continuing to trade some margin for growth (Entrackr, May 2026; Inc42, May 2026).

The takeaway

The most instructive stretch of CashKaro’s history is not the fundraising or the pandemic pivot — it is the three flat years right after the Series A. Money in the bank did not create growth; it just sat there while the founders, by their own admission, were too cautious to spend it. The eventual fix was not a bigger round, since Ratan Tata’s money had already arrived by January 2016 and nothing changed for years afterward. It was a change in behaviour: launching a second product line in EarnKaro, then reacting to a crisis by rebuilding the offer within weeks rather than waiting it out. Capital creates the option to grow. Someone still has to choose, decisively, to spend it.

Frequently asked questions

What does CashKaro do?

CashKaro is a cashback and coupons platform: shoppers buy from partner retailers such as Amazon, Flipkart and Myntra through CashKaro’s app or website and receive part of the retailer’s commission back as cash. Its sister platform, EarnKaro, lets individuals earn commission by sharing affiliate shopping links instead of shopping themselves.

Who founded CashKaro and when?

Swati Bhargava and Rohan Bhargava, a husband-and-wife team who met at the London School of Economics, founded CashKaro’s UK predecessor, Pouring Pounds, in 2011, and launched CashKaro for Indian shoppers in 2013.

Who are CashKaro’s biggest investors and how much has it raised?

CashKaro has raised over ₹250 crore across five rounds from investors including Kalaari Capital (Series A, 2015), personal investor Ratan Tata (2016), Korea Investment Partners (Series B, 2020) and Affle Global (Series C, 2022). No valuation has been publicly disclosed for any round.

Is CashKaro profitable?

Not yet at the EBITDA level as of the figures reported for FY26, though its EBITDA loss narrowed about 40% year-on-year to ₹17.7 crore even as revenue grew 72.4% to ₹600 crore, per Entrackr and Inc42’s May 2026 reporting.

What is the difference between CashKaro and EarnKaro?

CashKaro serves shoppers who want cashback on their own purchases. EarnKaro serves people who want to earn commission by sharing affiliate links with others, functioning more like a reselling or social-commerce tool built on the same retailer partnerships.

Sources

Figures are as of September 2026. Currency converted at $1 ≈ ₹96.0 as of 18 September 2026 (Trading Economics).

• TechCrunch, “CashKaro Raises $3.8M Series A To Become The Ebates Of Southeast Asia,” November 2015
• Business Standard, “CashKaro receives Rs 25 crore in series A funding from Kalaari Capital,” November 2015
• YourStory, “CashKaro gets more than cash, bags Ratan Tata as investor,” January 2016
• Inc42, “Ratan Tata Invests In Cashback & Coupons Site, CashKaro,” January 2016
• Business Standard, “Ratan Tata invests in cashback, coupons site CashKaro,” January 2016
• TechCrunch, “Indian e-commerce deals site CashKaro gets $10 million Series B led by Korea Investment Partners,” September 2020
• Inc42, “CashKaro Raises $10 Mn In Series B Funding From Korea Investment Partners & Kalaari Capital,” September 2020
• YourStory, “Pivot and persist: how discount coupon startup CashKaro adapted through the pandemic,” February 2021
• Forbes India, “How CashKaro got its payback from cashbacks (and some cash burn)”
• YourStory, “CashKaro raises Rs 130 Cr in Series C round led by Affle Global,” November 2022
• Entrackr, “CashKaro secures Rs 130 Cr in Series C led by Affle Global,” November 2022
• Inc42, “CashKaro Narrows Its Loss 25% YoY In FY23, Crosses INR 250 Cr Revenue Mark,” 2023
• BW Disrupt, “CashKaro’s Shrinks Losses By 25% To Rs 11.1 Cr In FY23,” 2023
• Inc42, “Exclusive: Ratan Tata-Backed CashKaro’s Revenue Crosses INR 300 Cr Mark In FY24,” 2024
• Entrackr, “CashKaro hits Rs 350 Cr revenue in FY25, GMV soars to Rs 6,000 Cr,” April 2025
• Inc42, “CashKaro’s FY25 Revenue Jumps To INR 350 Cr,” April 2025
• Entrackr, “CashKaro revenue grows 72% to Rs 600 Cr in FY26; narrows losses,” May 2026
• Inc42, “CashKaro Claims 72% YoY Jump in FY26 Revenue To ₹600 Cr,” May 2026
• Kalaari CXXO, “My Fundraising Story with Swati Bhargava, Co-Founder, CashKaro”
• The Weekend Leader, “Story of Rohan Bhargava and Swati Bhargava, co-founders, CashKaro”
• CashKaro company blog, “How Does CashKaro Work? Business Model, Founders, Investors” (company-stated)
• Tracxn, CashKaro company and funding profile, 2026

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