Yap is the API and embedded finance platform of M2P Solutions of Chennai, India, which later traded as M2P Fintech; it gives banks, NBFCs and fintechs API access to card and banking infrastructure.

This Startup Deep Dive explains what Yap does, how it makes money, who backs it, how it compares with rivals and what could go wrong, using publicly available information. It is educational and not investment advice. Last updated: October 2026.

Yap in Brief

• What it is: Yap is an Indian Fintech API platform company based in Chennai.
• Who it serves: consumers, merchants, banks, lenders and enterprises.
• YAP is an API provider for banks, startups and consumer internet companies, described as embedded finance infrastructure; the parent M2P Solutions later rebranded as M2P Fintech.
• In 2020 it said it gave API-based access to financial services to over 200 fintechs (company-stated); in March 2021 it served around 20 Indian banks including ICICI Bank, Yes Bank and RBL Bank, plus Ola and PaisaBazaar.
• By January 2022 the platform covered nearly two dozen markets across Asia and North Africa.
• Funding: Over $107M by January 2022 (reported); later rounds reported, see funding.

Yap Quick Facts

Figures marked “reported” come from published reports and may differ between sources; “Not disclosed” means no reliable public figure was found.

What Is Yap?

Yap operates in the Fintech API platform space in India. Understanding a company like this starts with three questions: who is the customer, what painful problem is being solved, and why the solution is better than the alternatives. The sections below apply that lens to Yap.

• YAP is an API provider for banks, startups and consumer internet companies, described as embedded finance infrastructure; the parent M2P Solutions later rebranded as M2P Fintech.
• In 2020 it said it gave API-based access to financial services to over 200 fintechs (company-stated); in March 2021 it served around 20 Indian banks including ICICI Bank, Yes Bank and RBL Bank, plus Ola and PaisaBazaar.
• By January 2022 the platform covered nearly two dozen markets across Asia and North Africa.
• Later company descriptions cite 300+ banks, 100+ NBFCs and 800+ fintech companies across 20+ markets; counts vary by source and date.
• Two offerings: helping licensed banks launch and upgrade banking services, and a payments layer that lets fintechs reach multiple banks through APIs.

The Origin Story of Yap

Every company starts from a noticed gap and a team willing to commit to closing it. Strong origin stories are specific: a clear problem, a founding team with relevant skills, and an early product that real customers could test. Founder-market fit, meaning the team’s lived experience or technical depth in the domain, tends to predict how fast a young company learns.

• Founders: Madhusudanan R, Muthukumar A, Prabhu R.
• M2P Solutions was co-founded in 2014 by Madhusudanan R, Prabhu R and Muthukumar A, who had previously worked at Verizon and Visa (reported).
• The company largely bootstrapped for nearly five years before outside funding.
• An angel round of Rs 10 crore went to M2P Solutions from individuals including Amrish Rau, former PayU India CEO (reported).
• Sources differ on a third founder: some name Muthukumar A, others Prabhu Rangarajan; Madhusudanan R is named consistently.

Key Milestones and Challenges

No startup grows in a straight line. Early years usually involve slow adoption, product rewrites, hiring mistakes and funding gaps. In the Fintech API platform sector the common turning points are a first paying customer, a regulatory approval, a successful product demonstration or a funding round that lets the team invest ahead of demand. How a team responds to setbacks says more about resilience than any single headline.

• 2014: M2P Solutions founded in Chennai.
• April 2020: $4.5M Series A led by BEENEXT (reported).
• March 2021: $10M Series B co-led by Flourish Ventures and Omidyar Network India, described as Flourish's first embedded finance investment in India.
• October 2021: $35M Series C led by Tiger Global.
• January 2022: $56M round led by Insight Partners at about $605M valuation (reports say $650M post-money).

Yap Funding and Investors

Funding history shows how much outside confidence a company has attracted and how long it can operate before needing more capital. Figures below are reported and may differ between sources; valuation figures are estimates unless the company has confirmed them.

• Series A, April 2020: $4.5M led by BEENEXT (reported).
• Series B, March 2021: $10M co-led by Flourish Ventures and Omidyar Network India, with BEENEXT, 8i Ventures and Better Capital (sources differ on DMI Group).
• Series C, October 2021: $35M led by Tiger Global with existing investors; valuation reports differ ($250-355M).
• Series C extension, January 2022: $56M led by Insight Partners with MUFG Innovation Partners, Tiger Global and Better Capital; total raised about $107M.

How Does Yap Make Money? (Business Model)

A business model describes who pays, how often and how much it costs to serve them. Strong models show repeat usage, improving margins with scale and acquisition channels that do not depend only on paid spend. Weak models show one-off sales, rising costs and growth that stops when spending stops. For companies selling to consumers, merchants, banks, lenders and enterprises, sales cycles and contract size matter as much as headline growth.

• Banking-as-a-Service: a technology layer between banks, NBFCs and fintechs.
• Revenue comes from API usage fees, card issuance and management fees, platform subscriptions, banking partnerships and cross-border forex services (reported).
• Clients include fintechs such as slice, CRED, Ola and Open.

The Numbers: Yap Financials

Financial figures show whether growth is turning into a self-sustaining business. Small and private companies often disclose little, so any number below is included only if it was found in public reporting.

• FY22: operating revenue Rs 194.74 crore.
• FY23: operating revenue Rs 440.7 crore (2.26x); net loss Rs 134.26 crore.
• FY24: revenue from operations about Rs 382 crore (down 13%); net loss about Rs 133-134 crore.
• FY25: revenue from operations about Rs 506 crore; net loss about Rs 256 crore (up about 91%); total costs about Rs 786 crore.
• Figures are for M2P Fintech, the parent entity that houses YAP.

Market Opportunity for Yap

Market size is easy to exaggerate, so a useful approach separates the total market from the portion a company can realistically reach with its current product and distribution. The main forces behind demand in this sector are the scale of UPI, rising digital lending, growing participation in investing and insurance, and the digitisation of small merchants. Each of these widens the opportunity, but capital efficiency and execution decide who captures it.

• Banks are shifting from capital-heavy to SaaS-style models, creating demand for banking infrastructure.
• Planned expansion markets included Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Egypt, Vietnam and Indonesia (company-stated, 2021).
• Series B proceeds were earmarked for technology, new capabilities and markets across Asia and the Middle East.

Technology and Product at Yap

Technology is rarely the whole moat, but it drives speed, cost and customer experience. A practical way to assess it is to separate the capability the company controls from the commodity infrastructure it rents. In this sector the important factors are uptime, security, fraud controls, integrations with banks and the speed of onboarding customers.

• API infrastructure for card issuing, payments and banking services.
• Largest cost line is technology, cloud and co-branding at about 41% of FY25 costs (reported).

Team and Culture at Yap

Teams are the most important and least measurable asset of a young company. Look at how complementary the founders’ skills are, how deep the second layer of leadership is, and how the company hires and retains specialists. Culture shows up in small repeated behaviours: how quickly bad news travels upward and whether commitments to customers are kept.

• Madhusudanan R is co-founder and CEO.
• The three co-founders collectively own about 34% (reported).

Yap Competitors: Competitive Landscape

A fair competitive analysis names direct rivals, adjacent players who could move into the space, and the customer’s default alternative. Durable advantages include proprietary data or technology, licences and approvals, brand trust, switching costs and cost leadership.

Risks and Challenges for Yap

• Losses widened sharply in FY25 as costs grew faster than revenue.
• FY24 revenue fell 13% before recovering in FY25.
• Valuation and funding reports conflict across sources.
• Dependence on partner banks and on large fintech clients.
• Regulatory risk: rules from the RBI, SEBI, IRDAI or NPCI can change economics or business scope quickly.
• Concentration risk: dependence on a few partners, banks or payment rails can create single points of failure.

Risk is not a reason to avoid a company; it is a reason to price it correctly and to monitor the right indicators over time. Regulation in this sector is shaped by the RBI, SEBI, IRDAI and NPCI.

Yap Growth Outlook: What to Watch

• Reaching profitability is the key test given FY25 loss of about Rs 256 crore.
• International expansion across Asia, the Middle East and North Africa remains the growth plan (company-stated).
• Key indicators: transaction value, take rate, active users, credit quality and cost of acquiring each customer.
• Funding position: Whether Yap can reach its next milestone before needing new capital.
• Regulation: Changes from the RBI, SEBI, IRDAI and NPCI.

Industry Context: Where Yap Fits

India's financial technology sector has been shaped by public digital infrastructure, especially UPI, along with Aadhaar-based identity, the account aggregator framework and regulation from the RBI, SEBI and IRDAI. These rails let startups reach customers and merchants at very low cost, but also expose them to fast-changing rules on licensing, data and lending conduct.

As payments become a low-margin commodity, fintech companies increasingly compete on distribution, merchant services, credit, wealth and insurance products. Sustainable profit usually depends on compliance strength, cost control and the quality of customer relationships rather than transaction volume alone.

For readers new to this field, a useful habit is to separate announcements from evidence. A plan, a partnership or a funding headline describes intent, while a delivered product, a paying customer or an audited financial statement describes results. Comparing the two over time shows how reliably a company turns promises into outcomes.

Bull Case and Bear Case for Yap

An investment thesis is a short, testable statement of why a company could become far more valuable, together with what evidence would prove it wrong. The points below are general to this sector and are not forecasts for Yap.

Bull case

• Digital payments and credit continue to grow, widening the market.
• Strong compliance and distribution create durable advantages.
• Cross-selling to existing customers can lift revenue per user.

Bear case

• Regulatory shifts can change economics overnight.
• Free or low-fee products make profit hard to reach.
• Fraud, outages and partner dependence can hurt trust.

Lessons Founders and Investors Can Take from Yap

Studying a company in the Fintech API platform space offers lessons that go beyond any single firm. The points below are general lessons for the sector and are not claims about Yap.

• Compliance is a growth enabler in financial services, not just a cost, because licences decide what a company is allowed to sell.
• Distribution and customer trust often matter more than the underlying payment or lending technology.
• Products that earn from services and credit tend to be steadier than ones that depend on free transactions.
• Dependence on a single bank partner or rail creates risk that should be managed early.
• Fraud prevention and uptime are core product features, not back-office tasks.

How to Evaluate Yap as a Startup

• Customer clarity: Can Yap name its customer and the problem it solves in one sentence?
• Evidence of demand: Look for repeat customers, signed contracts or measurable usage rather than announcements alone.
• Economics: Check whether margins improve as volume grows.
• Execution: Compare announced timelines with what has actually been delivered.
• Funding runway: Estimate how long current capital lasts at the present spending rate.
• Regulatory standing: Confirm required approvals are in place.
• Customer concentration: Check whether a few customers account for most of the revenue.
• Management depth: Look for experienced leaders beyond the founders and a stable core team.

The Takeaway

Yap is part of India’s growing Fintech API platform ecosystem. The useful lesson from studying it is the discipline of asking structured questions about customers, economics, advantage and resilience. Companies that answer them well, repeatedly and under pressure are the ones that endure. Readers should treat any single report, ranking or funding headline as one input among many, and should re-check key facts against recent company announcements. Because public information on young companies is often limited, patience in verifying claims is part of good analysis. Public sources can also describe the same company in different ways, so it is worth checking dates, definitions and whether a figure refers to revenue, total income or transaction value, and whether it covers one entity or a wider group, before drawing conclusions. Small differences in rounding, currency conversion or reporting periods can also change how a figure reads. Comparing the same figure across several recent reports helps show whether it is stable or has changed over time. This article is educational and is not investment advice.

• Clear customers and repeat demand matter more than announcements.
• Regulation and capital needs shape how fast a startup in this sector can grow.
• Track a few leading indicators over time rather than one headline metric.

Yap FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions

What is Yap?

YAP is the API and embedded finance platform of M2P Solutions of Chennai, India, which later traded as M2P Fintech; it gives banks, NBFCs and fintechs API access to card and banking infrastructure. It is profiled in the Startup Deep Dive series, which explains business model, funding, competitors and risks.

Who founded Yap?

Yap was founded by Madhusudanan R, Muthukumar A, Prabhu R, and the company reports a founding year of 2014 (M2P).

How much funding has Yap raised?

Over $107M by January 2022 (reported); later rounds reported, see funding. Funding figures are reported and may differ between sources, so readers should check the latest company announcements.

How does Yap make money?

Yap earns revenue from its Fintech API platform products and services sold to consumers, merchants, banks, lenders and enterprises. The exact revenue mix is described in the business model section and is not fully disclosed publicly.

Who are the competitors of Yap?

Reported rivals include Marqeta. See the competitor comparison above for how they differ.

What are the main risks for Yap?

Main risks include rules from the rbi, sebi, irdai or npci can change economics or business scope quickly, funding and capital needs, competition and regulation by the RBI, SEBI, IRDAI and NPCI. This is educational content, not investment advice.

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Source

Source: Publicly available data, published reports, industry research, and other credible sources.