Back to feeds

Went to IIT, left his high paying job and built an 8000 CR company. 1. After completing his electrical engineering degree at IIT Delhi, Bipin Preet Singh proposed new features for Motorola Chipsets at Freelance Semiconductor. He saw the rising adoption of the Internet and mobile phones in India and wanted to do something about it. 🤔 2. He wanted to build a payment solution where the risk of exposing card or bank account details at multiple merchants is unavailable. Just as he was thinking, the idea struck him. 💡 3. The idea was simple ⏩ Build a mobile wallet that one could use multiple times across services and service providers to make payments. With Rs 8 lakh in savings, he rented an office in Dwarka, Delhi, with Rs 10,000 with his wife (Upasana). In 2009, Mobikwik was born. 🚀 4. Bipin started the model with prepaid recharge for all Indian operators, data services (GPRS/3G top-ups), and mobile applications. To make it even more accessible, he launched an SMS-based recharge model on the available MobiKwik balance for people without internet service. ✅ 5. But Bipin quickly realised a problem. Mobile services worked on a 'push' model, meaning the operator would push down the services to customers, leaving them with limited choices and lower-quality services. He wanted to solve this and then came up with another brilliant plan. 👇 6. He launched the 'pull' model in the Indian telecom, wherein one could recharge mobile, check out new offers, and find premium apps, all at Mobikwik. As it partnered with clients like PVR and CCD, it rose to 15 million wallet users and 25,000 merchants by 2015. It raised 190 CR and became a 1000 CR company. 📉 7. By 2016, MobiKwik had diversified to offer small loans of Rs 500- 2500, as users added Rs 900 - 1200 monthly to its wallet and did transactions worth Rs 150, primarily for mobile recharges. As it scaled to 30 million users with 75,000 retailers, it raised 332.6 CR led by Japan's payment gateway (GMO). 💰 8. As the competition heated with Paytm's and Google Pay's entry into the wallet space in 2017, Bipin needed more than capital to triple his user base from 50 million to 150 million as transactions grew by 400% in demonetisation. That's when the legacy group, Bajaj, joined the party. 🪄 9. On 3rd August 2017, Bajaj Finance announced the acquisition of a 10.83% stake in Mobikwik for Rs 225 CR. With this strategic investment, Mobikwik scaled to 100 million users and 2 billion dollars worth of annual transactions. It had beaten Google Pay and, with PaytM, was dominating 80% of the wallet market. 🙌 10. Today, Mobikwik has 146 million users and 3.8 million merchants, and its annual transaction volume is more than 25,000 CR. With a 23% market share, it has become the leading wallet player by transaction value. 💪 ➡️ Bipin left his high-paying job, moved to a rented apartment, and hustled for 15 long years to get here. His journey has not been that Mobi-qwik.