OneStack Raises ₹12.5 Crore as Cooperative Banks Go Live Directly on NPCI's UPI Network
New investor Shepherd's Hill joins existing backers Pentathlon Ventures and AVNM Ventures; cooperative banks now live as UPI Issuers and Acquirers directly with NPCI, under their own bank handles
Mumbai, 4 November 2026:
OneStack, a fintech infrastructure company serving cooperative banks, has raised ₹12.5 crore from new investor Shepherd's Hill and existing backers Pentathlon Ventures and AVNM Ventures. The investment will support its expansion as smaller financial institutions bring digital payments and banking services under their own brands.
Through OneStack, cooperative banks are now live as both UPI Issuers and Acquirers directly with NPCI, each under its own bank handle. A cooperative bank can now issue UPI IDs to its own customers, sign up its own merchants and settle payments on its own rails. It keeps the customer relationship, the transaction data and the MDR / payment revenue.
Including this round, OneStack has raised more than ₹45 crore across four funding rounds, backed by investors including Pentathlon Ventures, 9Unicorns, growX Ventures, Stride Ventures, Samved VC, Silicon Road Ventures and Venture Catalysts.
Earlier rounds helped the company grow from a white-label mobile banking provider into a full-stack platform for banks. Along the way, it launched its OneCBS core banking system, bank-branded SoundBox for merchants, and its own UPI switch and PSP stack. The new round comes as OneStack moves from building its platform to scaling it through sponsor-bank partnerships.
The fresh capital will fund market expansion across cooperative banks and NBFCs, alongside product development in payments, core banking and regulatory compliance. OneStack is extending its platform to NBFCs with tools for customer verification and fraud reporting. Its compliance suite includes integration with the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C). OneStack is also an Aadhaar OVSE technology service provider, has integrated eKYC Setu, and holds RuPay Debit Card (Issuance) certification and SU3J licenses under credit bureaus.
Founded by Amit Kapoor, OneStack provides technology that enables smaller financial institutions to offer digital services without building the infrastructure themselves. Its platform combines mobile banking, UPI issuing and merchant acquiring, QR payments, debit card management and its OneCBS core banking system, helping institutions replace the fragmented technology arrangements that make digital upgrades costly and complex. Kapoor previously co-founded and led payments company Airpay.
"Cooperative banks have always had their communities' trust, but on UPI they were disconnected from their own customers. Today our partner banks are live as UPI Issuers and Acquirers directly with NPCI, under their own handles. That puts the bank, not an intermediary, at the centre of every payment its customers make. With MDR back on UPI, owning both sides of the payment is now a revenue opportunity for every cooperative bank. With this capital, we will take our payments, core banking and compliance products to more cooperative banks and bring the same capabilities to NBFCs," said Amit Kapoor, Founder & CEO of OneStack.
OneStack has partnered with a large private-sector bank that sponsors more than 250 cooperative banks, opening a direct route to take UPI issuing, merchant acquiring and its wider banking platform across that network. It has also been onboarded as a technology service provider on Sahakar Sarathi, the shared services entity promoted by NABARD, NCDC and rural cooperative banks. Together, the two channels give OneStack access to both urban and rural cooperative banks at a scale few technology providers in the sector can match. The company currently serves more than 200 banks across the country, including state cooperative banks, district central cooperative banks (DCCBs) and non-scheduled urban cooperative banks (NSUCBs).
The timing is significant. UPI merchant payments above ₹2,000 now carry a merchant discount rate (MDR) of 0.40%, capped at ₹300 per transaction, ending six years of zero-MDR UPI. The charge is shared across the issuing bank, the acquiring bank, payment service providers and NPCI, with industry estimates putting the annual pool at up to ₹16,000 crore. For the first time since 2020, UPI is a revenue line for banks, not just a cost of serving customers. Cooperative banks that are live directly with NPCI as both Issuer and Acquirer can now earn on both sides of a merchant payment: when their customers pay, and when their merchants get paid.
India's cooperative banking network provides a sizeable market for shared technology. NABARD's 2024–25 annual report records 34 state cooperative banks and 351 district central cooperative banks, together operating nearly 15,900 branches as of March 2025. The urban segment adds 1,457 urban cooperative banks with ₹7.38 lakh crore in assets (RBI). These banks' technology needs extend beyond accepting digital payments to customer onboarding, account management, cybersecurity and regulatory reporting. Shared platforms help these banks spread development costs while continuing to serve customers through a familiar local institution.
Lead Investors - “We’re excited to partner with Amit Kapoor and the OneStack team as they keep building the digital infrastructure that brings India’s cooperative banks and the millions they serve onto modern financial rails.”, said Ashutosh Ghanekar, General Partner at Shepherd’s Hill.
Participating Investors - “Our decision to back OneStack again reflects our conviction in both the opportunity and the founders' ability to execute. When we first invested, we saw a large, underserved cooperative banking ecosystem in need of a world leading Indian financial technology such as UPI. Amit and the team have continued to build toward that opportunity, and serve the customers of these banks who benefit from world-leading Indian Fintech. We're excited to support them through their next phase of growth.” said Sandeep Chawda, Managing Partner, Pentathlon Ventures