Startup Deep Dive : Uni Cards — how one RBI circular reset a $350 million pay-later startup

In October 2020, before it had shipped a single card, Uni raised $18.5 million — described at the time as one of the largest seed rounds India had ever seen — and by December 2021 investors valued the Bengaluru pay-later startup at about $350 million. Then a single line in a Reserve Bank of India circular took the business apart.

On 20 June 2022 the RBI told non-bank prepaid issuers they could no longer load their instruments from credit lines. Uni’s core product was exactly that: a prepaid card funded by borrowed money. Within two months it switched the card off. By 2025, reports said Uni was raising fresh capital at roughly $95 million — a markdown of more than 70% from its peak — while it rebuilt itself, twice over, around a licence it did not have and a card it could no longer issue on its own.

Quick facts

What Uni does

Uni sells consumer credit, packaged to feel like a card. It launched with pay-later cards that let a shopper split any purchase into interest-free instalments, and it now works mainly as a distributor of co-branded credit cards issued by banks, alongside a credit-line-to-bank-account product called Uni Cash. Its customer is the digital-native, salaried or self-employed Indian who wants a credit line without the friction of a traditional bank card.

• Original products: the Uni Pay 1/3rd Card (split a bill into three interest-free parts) and the Uni Pay 1/2 Card (split into two), run on prepaid rails with partner banks including RBL Bank and SBM Bank.
• Current products: co-branded credit cards such as the Uni Gold X (with Bob Card) and a YES Bank Uni RuPay Credit Card, plus Uni Cash, which pushes an approved credit line straight into a user’s bank account.
• Regulatory backbone: in April 2023 Uni acquired OHMY Technologies (OMLP2P), giving it an RBI-registered NBFC-P2P licence to lend through a regulated entity rather than an unregulated app.

The origin

The founding insight was demographic arithmetic. When Uni started in 2020, India had roughly 58 million credit cards in a country of more than a billion people, and Nitin Gupta believed the addressable base could reach 200 million within five years if someone built a card for people banks ignored. Gupta was not a first-timer. He had co-founded PayUMoney and scaled it into one of India’s larger payment gateways, then run Ola Financial Services, where he built OlaMoney Wallet and OlaMoney Postpaid.

He brought that team with him. Prateek Jindal had built OlaMoney Postpaid, the “pay later” muscle Uni would need, and Laxmikant Vyas had led data science at Bajaj Finance, the country’s most aggressive consumer lender. The pitch was simple: take the instalment habit Indians already trusted on large purchases and put it on a card for everyday spending, underwritten with better data than a legacy bank would use. Investors bought it before there was a product to see — the seed round closed while Uni was still in stealth.

The struggle years

Uni’s history is a sequence of regulatory shocks, each of which forced it to rebuild. The company kept moving, but every pivot cost it time, customers and valuation.

• June–August 2022 — the card is switched off. The RBI’s PPI circular of 20 June 2022 barred non-bank prepaid issuers from loading credit lines. Uni’s pay-later cards were prepaid instruments funded by credit, so the model was now non-compliant. It began suspending the Uni Pay 1/3rd and Uni Pay 1/2 cards in phases from 19 August 2022 and completed the shutdown by 22 August 2022.
• 2023–2024 — the lending route narrows too. Uni acquired OMLP2P in April 2023 to lend through an NBFC-P2P licence, but the RBI’s tightening of peer-to-peer lending rules in 2024 made scaling that channel difficult, and Uni later stepped back from new disbursals.
• 2024 — a co-founder leaves. Prateek Jindal exited operational roles to build PowerUp Money, a wealthtech venture that spun out of Uni and raised $7.1 million (about ₹61 crore) in seed funding led by Accel, Blume Ventures and Kae Capital around April 2025.
• 2025 — the down round. Reports said Uni was in talks to raise about $18 million at roughly $95 million post-money, down more than 70% from the ~$350 million it commanded in 2021.

The turning point

The single event that defines Uni is the August 2022 card shutdown, because it split the company’s life cleanly in two. On one side was a fast-growing pay-later business built on prepaid rails and credit lines; on the other was a company that suddenly had no compliant way to run its flagship product.

The RBI circular of 20 June 2022 was aimed at the entire “credit-on-prepaid” model that fintechs such as Uni and slice had used to grow. Uni’s response was to comply quickly rather than fight: CEO Nitin Gupta said the company was “proactively suspending” its card services in phases by 22 August 2022. To keep customers from being stranded, Uni extended a zero-charge partial limit on Uni Cash until 21 September 2022 so users could still meet essential payments such as fees, medical bills and emergencies. What had been a card company overnight became a company searching for a new, regulated way to lend — the search that produced the OMLP2P acquisition and, eventually, the shift to distributing banks’ own cards.

The money behind it

Uni raised roughly $104 million across its life, front-loaded into two large early rounds when investor appetite for Indian fintech was at its peak.

• Seed — October 2020, $18.5 million, led by Lightspeed India Partners and Accel, and described as one of India’s largest seed rounds. It closed while Uni was still in stealth.
• Series A — December 2021, $70 million, led by General Catalyst, with Lightspeed, Accel, Eight Roads Ventures, Elevation Capital and Arbor Ventures participating. The round valued Uni at about $350 million.
• Later capital and investors: Uni’s cap table also includes DMI Sparkle Fund among its backers, taking cumulative funding to about $104 million.
• The 2025 down round: reports described a planned raise of about $18 million at roughly $95 million post-money — a markdown of more than 70% from the 2021 peak, reflecting both the regulatory hits and the wider cooling of fintech lending.

What each stage changed is telling. Lightspeed and Accel bought the founding team and the demographic thesis. General Catalyst’s $70 million bought scale, at a valuation that assumed the pay-later card would keep compounding. The 2025 round, if completed on the reported terms, is survival capital — money to keep a smaller, card-distribution business running while it looks for a profitable niche.

How it makes money

Uni’s economics changed with its model. In the pay-later era, revenue came from the spread on credit; today it looks more like a distribution and services business layered on banks’ balance sheets.

• Interest and fees on credit (original model): when Uni ran its own pay-later cards, money came from merchant fees and the finance charges built into instalment plans, funded by credit lines from lending partners. The margin sat in the gap between its cost of funds and what customers effectively paid.
• Co-branded card distribution (current model): Uni now sources and services customers for bank-issued cards such as the Uni Gold X (Bob Card) and the YES Bank Uni RuPay card, earning acquisition and servicing economics while the bank holds the credit risk and the regulatory licence.
• Uni Cash and NBFC-P2P lending: Uni Cash transfers approved credit lines to a customer’s bank account; lending through the OMLP2P NBFC-P2P licence was meant to let Uni earn a regulated lending spread, though RBI’s 2024 P2P rules limited that route.
• The part people get wrong: Uni is often described as a “credit card company,” but since 2022 it does not issue cards on its own licence. The regulated card is the bank’s; Uni’s revenue increasingly depends on how many of those cards it can distribute and service, and on interchange-linked economics it does not fully control.

The numbers

Uni’s reported financials show a company that grew revenue sharply after the pivot, then stalled, while losses stayed heavy relative to its size. Figures below are from filings-based reporting (Entrackr/Inc42/Tofler) for Uniorbit Technologies; unit is ₹ crore.

• FY24 revenue of ₹100 crore (≈$10.4 million at $1 ≈ ₹96.0) was nearly triple FY23’s ₹34 crore, as the co-branded and Uni Cash businesses replaced the suspended pay-later card.
• FY25 revenue slipped to about ₹95 crore, roughly 4.8% lower year on year — the growth stalled once the easy post-pivot catch-up was done. Inc42 reported a higher total-income figure of ₹105.7 crore for FY25, the gap reflecting non-operating income and standalone-versus-consolidated reporting differences.
• Net loss narrowed from ₹167 crore in FY24 to ₹151 crore in FY25, but the company still spent far more than it earned; Inc42 pegged FY25 total expenses at about ₹255.7 crore.
• Cumulative losses of this size against ~₹95–100 crore of revenue are why the 2025 raise reportedly came at a steep discount rather than a markup.

Where the money comes from

Uni does not publish a clean segment table, but the shape of the business can be read from its product mix and the volumes it discloses to the market.

• Cards, now issued by partners: the revenue engine shifted from Uni’s own prepaid card to distributing bank-issued co-branded cards (Bob Card, YES Bank) plus Uni Cash.
• Current card volume: Uni was reported to be issuing more than 40,000 credit cards a month — meaningful, but small against the roughly 850,000 cards Indian banks issue in a month, underlining that Uni is now one distributor among many rather than a category leader.
• Lending, deliberately shrunk: after the 2024 P2P rules, Uni halted new loan disbursals and moved to managing its existing borrower base, so the lending line is a run-off, not a growth engine.
• The surprise: the geography that matters most for Uni is not a state or city but the regulator’s rulebook. Each of its three revenue phases — prepaid pay-later, NBFC-P2P lending, co-branded distribution — was opened or closed by an RBI decision, not by customer demand. Uni’s “market” is effectively defined in Mumbai, at the RBI, more than in any consumer segment.

The risks

• Regulatory dependence. Uni’s history is proof of concept for its biggest risk: a single circular can end a product line overnight. The June 2022 PPI rule killed the pay-later card; 2024 P2P norms curbed lending; and continuing RBI scrutiny of co-branded card data-sharing could squeeze the distribution model it now relies on. A business whose model has been reset three times by the regulator has little control over its own runway.
• Weak unit economics and cash burn. With FY25 revenue around ₹95 crore against a net loss of ₹151 crore and total expenses reported near ₹255.7 crore, Uni spends roughly ₹2.7 for every ₹1 of revenue. A reported raise of only about $18 million buys limited time to close that gap before it must raise again — likely at another difficult valuation.
• Loss of the licence and the margin. Because the compliant, revenue-bearing card is now the bank’s, Uni captures distribution and servicing economics rather than the full lending spread. If banks build direct digital acquisition or tighten co-brand terms, Uni’s take can shrink without Uni doing anything wrong — it is a step removed from the customer relationship and the interchange it once owned.

The takeaway

Uni’s lesson is about where a business keeps its licence to operate. It raised money on the strength of a team and a demographic that were both real, and it built a product customers liked. None of that mattered when the model itself sat outside the perimeter the regulator was willing to allow. The startups that survived the 2022 shock were the ones that either held a banking or NBFC licence or partnered deeply with someone who did; the ones that had engineered around regulation, however cleverly, had to rebuild from scratch. Speed and product love are necessary in fintech, but in a regulated market they are worth little without a durable, licensed foundation under the revenue — and that foundation is far cheaper to acquire before the circular arrives than after.

Frequently asked questions

What is Uni Cards and who owns it?

Uni Cards is an Indian fintech that started with pay-later cards and now focuses on distributing co-branded credit cards and running Uni Cash. It is operated by Uniorbit Technologies Private Limited, based in Bengaluru and founded in 2020.

Why did Uni suspend its pay-later cards?

On 20 June 2022 the RBI barred non-bank prepaid issuers from loading their instruments through credit lines. Uni’s pay-later cards were prepaid instruments funded by credit, so the model became non-compliant, and Uni suspended the Uni Pay 1/3rd and Uni Pay 1/2 cards in phases, completing the shutdown by 22 August 2022.

How much money has Uni raised and at what valuation?

Uni has raised about $104 million in total, including an $18.5 million seed (October 2020) and a $70 million Series A (December 2021) that valued it at roughly $350 million. Reports in 2025 described a fresh raise of about $18 million at around $95 million, a fall of more than 70%.

Why did Uni acquire an NBFC?

In April 2023 Uni acquired OHMY Technologies (OMLP2P), which held an RBI-registered NBFC-P2P licence, so it could lend through a regulated entity after RBI tightened rules on unregulated digital lending. RBI’s 2024 P2P norms later limited how far Uni could scale that route.

Is Uni profitable?

No. In FY25 (year to 31 March 2025) Uni reported operating revenue of about ₹95 crore and a net loss of ₹151 crore, narrower than the ₹167 crore loss in FY24 but still large relative to its revenue.

Sources

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

• TechCrunch — Uni raises $18.5 million seed (October 2020) and $70 million Series A (December 2021)
• Inc42 — “Nitin Gupta’s Fintech Startup Uni Raises $18.5 Mn In Seed Round” (October 2020); Uni Cards financials page (2026)
• Reserve Bank of India / Business Today / Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas blog — RBI PPI credit-line circular, 20 June 2022
• Business Today — “Uni Cards halts services of two products following RBI’s digital lending guidelines” (August 2022)
• Business Standard / dtNext / Outlook Business — Uni suspends card services (August 2022)
• Inc42 — “Fintech Startup Uni Cards Acquires P2P Lending Platform OHMY Technologies” (2023)
• Entrackr / TheKredible / Moneycontrol — Uni FY24 and FY25 revenue and net loss (2025)
• Ascendants / AngelOne — Uni’s reported 2025 fundraise at ~$95 million and ~40,000 cards a month (2025)
• Inc42 — “Wealthtech Startup PowerUp Money Bags $7.1 Mn” (2025)
• Tofler / Tracxn — Uniorbit Technologies Private Limited legal entity, CIN and shareholding

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