Global Fintech Fest 2026 Kicks Off
Indian startups basked in the spotlight as the Global Fintech Festival 2026 kicked off on a gala note yesterday. Be it the plethora of launches or top leaders making a beeline for the event, the first day was all about the aspirations and growth of the homegrown fintech ecosystem.
NPCI’s Android ATMs: National Payments Corporation of India rolled out open-source Android ATMs, designed to act as digital banking units for rural hubs and corporate parks. To be piloted in partnership with nine lenders and manufacturers, these machines will streamline account openings, instant RuPay card issuance and merchant onboarding.
AI Enters The Chat: NPCI also debuted AiNxt, an open-source platform for enterprises to deploy custom AI agents, and AtOM, a system for managing partner onboarding across UPI. The payments body also proposed an agentic framework to execute micro-payments autonomously.
Besides this, UIDAI also debuted its Face Auth SDK and Sandbox, which will make Aadhaar face authentication easier for developers to integrate and test across services. Meanwhile, Maharashtra is developing a framework to tokenise land and other immovable assets, potentially helping owners access liquidity against property.
Meanwhile, the Centre also broadened the scope of credit-on-UPI to cover government schemes, integrating over 7.7 Cr Kisan credit card accounts and 57 Cr PM MUDRA loans onto digital rails.
Payments Go Cardless: On the product front, PhonePe and Visa announced a partnership to roll out cardless transactions for consumers and small merchants in India and 14 other countries. Meanwhile, Jio Payments Solutions and Citi also banded together to launch a cross-border payments service, BharatPe and Pine Labs rolled out agentic AI tools, and Yubi launched a new lending platform for retail borrowers.
As the conversation moves beyond payments to agentic AI and credit, here is everything that made headlines on the first day of the Global Fintech Festival 2026…
From The Editor’s Desk
The Estate Planning Question
- The recent passing away of prominent founders has forced the Indian startup ecosystem to confront what happens to equity, unvested shares and company control when a top executive passes away unexpectedly.
- Without a will, founder shares devolve under intestate succession laws, which can create fragmented ownership and complicate cap tables. As such, advisors recommend using trusts to ringfence liabilities and separate ownership from benefits.
- VC firms are also beginning to embed succession and exigency provisions more systematically, including accelerated vesting on death, direct transmission to nominees and pre-agreed secondary options.
RentoMojo’s IPO Day 1
- The furniture and appliance rental platform’s public issue was subscribed 1.42X on the first day of bidding, receiving bids for 3.08 Cr shares against 2.18 Cr shares on offer.
- NIIs subscribed their quota 2.46X, while retail investors and retail investors booked their portion 1.54X. However, QIB response remained muted and subscribed their portion a mere 0.41X.
- RentoMojo’s IPO comprises a fresh issue of shares worth ₹150 Cr and an OFS of up to 2.7 Cr shares worth ₹1,105 Cr. It has set a price band of ₹384-₹404 apiece for its public issue, valuing the company at around ₹4,206 Cr at the upper end of the spectrum.
QNu Labs Bags ₹200 Cr
- The quantum cybersecurity startup has raised around $21 Mn in its Series A1 round co-led by National Quantum Mission and Speciale Invest to scale R&D, sales and go-to-market strategy. With this, QNu Labs has raised ₹375 Cr to date.
- Founded in 2016, QNu Labs is building cybersecurity products for the quantum era. Besides offering solutions based on quantum key distribution and post-quantum cryptography, it is also building security solutions for drones and satellites.
- Quantum computing startups are on the rise in India due to massive state funding, a large talent pool and the need for advanced cybersecurity. For context, these computers, once they cross a certain threshold, can render current encryption standards obsolete.
Flipkart’s New Experiments
- The ecommerce giant has launched a standalone app for its quick commerce service, Minutes. The app, which is still in beta mode, is live on Google Play Store and is currently only available for a select number of users.
- This comes as Flipkart also began piloting its food delivery service, called Eat In, among its employees in Bengaluru. It now plans to roll out the offering for end consumers in the city before its flagship Big Billion Day sale.
- The expansion comes as Flipkart has scaled Minutes to 1,000 micro-fulfilment centres across 130 cities. The ecommerce major has now set its eyes on expanding its quick commerce network to 1,500 centres across 180 cities.
Big Reprieve For Google
- Following the ban on real money gaming last year, the Competition Commission of India has now closed its antitrust probe into Google over the big tech giant’s treatment of real money gaming apps.
- The CCI said that the ban has made it impossible to grant the relief sought in the case. However, the watchdog clarified that closing the case did not imply that Google’s conduct was not anti-competitive.
- The case stemmed from a complaint by WinZO, which accused Google of abusing its dominant position by allowing Daily Fantasy Sports and Rummy apps on the Play Store and Google Ads while excluding RMG apps.
Inc42 Markets
Inc42 Startup Spotlight
How Invisel Is Using Nano-Coatings To Stop Stains
Hard-water marks, upholstery stains and everyday wear force homeowners into a cycle of deep cleaning and repairs. Invisel is trying to break this loop by bringing its industrial-grade nano-coating technology to households, creating an invisible protective layer.
Protective Film For Homes: Founded in November 2024, Invisel develops protective coatings for glass, tiles, fabric, marble and metal. Its nanotechnology-based formulations use silane-siloxane, graphene and curable silicone resins to create surface-specific barriers against stains, hard-water damage and daily wear.
Invisel’s D2C Kits: The startup sells DIY nano-coating kits directly to consumers, partners with furniture OEMs for pre-treated products. It also offers professional application services for bathrooms and sofas. All formulations are manufactured in-house at its facility in Pune, where the startup handles blending, filling and batch-level quality testing.
Building A New Category: In just over a year of commercial operations, Invisel claims to have served more than 60,000 customers across 900+ pincodes and generated ₹5.2 Cr in FY26 revenue profitably. Going forward, it plans to focus on ramping up manufacturing, expanding product portfolio, bolstering offline distribution and entering new markets.
As premiumisation reshapes the country’s ₹6 Lakh Cr home-care market, can Invisel bring industrial-grade cleaning solutions to Indian homes?
Infographic Of The Day
A new generation of startups is betting on cleaner mobility, energy and climate solutions to reduce India’s dependence on oil. Here is all about the startups that are making the country’s transition to clean energy less dependent on imports…
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