E135: Anish Achuthan (Co-founder & CEO, Open Financial Technologies)

The Desi VC with Akash Bhat

Anish is the Co-founder and CEO of Open, a neo-banking platform which provides business banking services to SMEs and startups. With over 17 years in the fintech industry, Anish has a rich entrepreneurial background. In 2001, he co-founded his first startup, iFuturz Wireless, focusing on mobile value-added services. In 2007, he founded CashNxt, a plug-and-play mobile payment and financial inclusion platform for semi-urban and rural markets, which was later acquired by a Latin American company. In 2009, he built Neartivity Wireless, an NFC-based payment processing platform. In 2013, he co-founded Zwitch, India’s first developer-focused payment platform, which was acquired by Citrus Payments in 2015. At CitrusPay and later at PayU, Anish interacted with numerous SMEs and realized that banking was broken for small businesses, with owners struggling to track their income and expenses, leading him to found Open.

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Episode Notes:

1. Introduction (1:50)
2. Why entrepreneurship? (2:37)
3. Selling his first company (9:00)
4. Building fintech in India from 2010 to 2024 (13:45)
5. Why Open and what was the vision for the company when it was initially founded? (18:48)
6. Building trust as an early Neo bank in India (23:20)
7. Lessons from building multiple startups (28:20)
8. Building and nurturing culture (33:20)
9. Building during the years of the pandemic (40:55)
10. Growing as a leader (47:55)
11. Challenges of building a company at scale (52:20)
12. Vision for Open in the coming years (56:38)
13. Advice Anish would have given himself early in his career (58:55)

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Social Links:

1. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Anish on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
2. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Anish on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
3. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Desi VC on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
4. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Akash Bhat on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
5. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Akash Bhat on LinkedIn