Navi, the Indian fintech founded by the Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal, has raised $100mn from the investor Prosus. It is the first outside institutional funding for the eight-year-old company, TechCrunch reported. Navi is preparing to go public.

The deal values Navi at about $1.3bn, according to people familiar with the matter cited by TechCrunch. Navi itself did not disclose the valuation, the stake Prosus is taking, or how it plans to use the money, Inc42 reported. Bansal did not respond to TechCrunch’s question about the valuation. Bloomberg, which also reported the deal, said Navi confirmed the investment but not the price.

The figure marks a step down from the company’s earlier ambitions. In 2024, Navi sought outside money at a valuation of about $2bn, TechCrunch reported. The new round values it lower, at roughly $1.3bn. A raise below a previous target is often called a down round, and it can reflect a cooler market for a company rather than a weaker business.

The Economic Times also reported the roughly $1.3bn figure, while Navi stayed silent on the number.

What Navi does

Navi is based in Bengaluru and offers a range of financial services. These include digital payments, lending, insurance and mutual funds. Bansal founded it in 2018 with Ankit Agarwal, after leaving Flipkart.

Bansal built Flipkart into India’s biggest online retailer. He sold his stake in 2018, shortly before Walmart bought control of the company. He then put hundreds of millions of dollars of his own money into Navi. He has said he wants to turn it into a bank. He stepped down as chief executive in February 2025 and now serves as executive chairman.

The company has grown into one of India’s larger payment apps. Its app runs on the government-backed Unified Payments Interface, or UPI, and ranks fourth in the country by transaction volume. It sits behind the Walmart-owned PhonePe, Google Pay and Paytm, according to TechCrunch.

In July, it processed more than 947 million transactions worth about $5bn, per official data. UPI is India’s dominant way to pay, and a strong position on it gives Navi a large base to sell other products to.

The money and the backer

Prosus is a Dutch technology investor with deep roots in consumer internet. It has been an active fintech backer, having recently led a large round in the European insurer Alan. It has also posted strong results of its own, with profit roughly doubling earlier this year.

The investor framed the deal as a bet on Navi’s reach. Ashutosh Sharma, who leads Prosus’s India investments, set out why it invested. He cited Navi’s large user base, its several business lines and its technology-first approach. He said Navi’s team had “executed extremely well” over the past year despite a tough market.

Bansal welcomed the investment. He said his ties to Prosus and its parent, Naspers, went back more than a decade. He called the deal a “strong endorsement” of what Navi is building. The transaction still needs regulatory clearance, including from the Competition Commission of India. It is also subject to customary closing conditions, Navi said.

A push toward profit

Navi says its business is on firmer footing. The group reached consolidated profitability in the fourth quarter of its 2026 financial year, it said, though it did not disclose the figures. For the full year, TechCrunch reported revenue of about $323mn. Reported figures for the group’s bottom line varied across outlets, so the full-year profit picture is not clear-cut.

Its lending arm is growing. Navi Finserv, the non-bank lender, has more than ₹130bn, about $1.4bn, in assets under management, the company said. Its standalone net profit rose 32% over the year, Inc42 reported, though its wider group figures were mixed. Navi has said its lending is growing while it keeps a lid on risk.

The company says it serves hundreds of millions of users across India. That scale is central to its pitch to investors ahead of a listing. It has pitched itself as a technology-led alternative to the country’s established banks and payment firms. Bansal’s long-term aim of a banking licence would put it in more direct competition with them.

The road to an IPO

The raise comes as Navi lines up a return to the public markets. It is reportedly preparing an initial public offering of about ₹30bn, or roughly $314mn. Navi could refile its draft papers with India’s market regulator by December, Inc42 reported.

It has lined up its bankers. Navi has appointed JM Financial, Kotak Mahindra Capital, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan as advisers for the planned listing, according to Inc42. Bringing in a well-known backer like Prosus can help a private company as it starts pitching to public-market investors. A recognised name on the register can lend credibility before a listing, Finimize noted.

This would be Navi’s second attempt to list. It filed draft papers in 2022 for a larger offering worth about $440mn, then shelved the plan the following year as the market soured. Its return now lands as investor appetite for tech listings has recovered.

The Prosus deal gives Navi fresh capital and a marquee name on its cap table just before that attempt. It also gives the company an outside price for the first time, after years funded largely by its founder. Whether the lower valuation holds, and whether the public listing goes ahead this time, will be the next tests for the company.

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