Juspay becomes the first Unicorn of the year 2026!
In the first major round of startup funding for 2026, Juspay, a leading Indian origin global payments infrastructure firm, has reportedly raised $50 million (₹460 crores) in a fresh funding round led by WestBridge Capital. This move pushed its valuation above $1 billion, making it the first unicorn of the year.
Over the recent years, investors have become increasingly selective, which marks a strong confidence in businesses that power India’s digital economy.
Juspay was founded in 2012 by Vimal Kumar. It is a global payment platform that enables businesses to manage secure, reliable, and scalable digital payments. Its solutions include:
Payment gateway and orchestration platforms
Secure checkout and tokenisation systems
Support for UPI, cards, and digital payment methods
High-reliability payment infrastructure for enterprises
Juspay works with leading companies across ecommerce, fintech, and financial services. Under Vimal Kumar’s leadership, the company has maintained a technology-first approach, prioritising system reliability and scale over rapid consumer expansion.
How Will Juspay Use the Funding?
Juspay plans to use the raised capital to improve its core payments infrastructure and support long-term growth across global and domestic markets. The funding will primarily be used for:
Enhancing the reliability, scale, and performance of its payments stack
Investing in advanced security, tokenisation, and checkout technologies
Expanding enterprise partnerships across fintech, ecommerce, and financial services
Strengthening engineering and product teams to support rising transaction volumes
The focus remains on building mission-critical payment systems that can handle large-scale, high-frequency digital transactions.
About The Investor: Westbridge Capital
Westbridge Capital is a long-term investment company that focuses on investing in quality Indian businesses with robust fundamentals and solid long-term growth prospects. Their strategy is based on patient capital investing in companies that create scalable platforms.
The firm has also invested in several other industry segments like “Technology and Software," “Financial Services and FinTech," and “Consumer and Enterprise Platforms.”
WestBridge is known for its focus on:
Founder-led companies with good business execution skills
Business operating in large and growing markets.
Companies that have defensible technologies with high entry barriers
Seeking long-term value creation rather than speed in exits
The choice of WestBridge’s investment in Juspay is a sign of the firm's string presence in payments infrastructure and its role as an essential player of digital India, especially those that offer secure, reliable, and high-volume transactions for enterprises.
Summary
Juspay has raised $50 million in a funding round led by WestBridge Capital. The company's valuation is pushed to $1.2 billion, making it the first unicorn of 2026. The funding signifies growing investor interest in the payments infrastructure companies.
The company will use this fund to strengthen its payments infrastructure, advance its security and checkout technologies, seek more collaborations, and scale up its engineering capabilities. WestBridge Capital's investment focuses on strengthening the infrastructure-first fintech platforms with long-term relevance and strong fundamentals.
Author: Komal Bhatt
Komal Bhatt is a finance content writer at InvestKraft, specialising in research-based articles on financial products, markets, and investment opportunities, including unlisted shares. She holds a Master’s degree in Commerce from the University of Delhi, providing a strong academic foundation in finance and business.
With over three years of experience in digital content, she focuses on simplifying complex financial topics into clear, accurate, and reader-friendly information. Her background includes creating content related to finance certifications such as wealth management and NISM programs, strengthening her understanding of financial markets and investor education.