Fi Money Cofounder Sumit Gwalani Quits Amid Mounting Financial Struggles

Fi Money cofounder Sumit Gwalani has exited the startup after six years amid the neobanking startup’s financial challenges and B2B pivot. 

“That chapter is closing. What it taught me will shape the next one. Next chapter: AI for the enterprise intelligence problems I lived at Fi,” Gwalani said in a LinkedIn post announcing his exit, hinting at his next venture.

As per his LinkedIn profile, he is currently the cofounder of a stealth startup since March this year.

Founded in 2019 by former Google Pay executives Sumit Gwalani and Sujith Narayanan, Fi Money started as a digital-first neobanking platform offering savings accounts, loans, investments and wealth products.

Since its inception, it has raised over $137 Mn from investors including Peak XV Partners, Falcon Edge India, Oceanview Capital Partners, Ribbit Capital and Alpha Wave Global, among others. However, the startup hasn’t raised fresh capital in recent years. 

In March, Fi shut down the banking services it offered in partnership with Federal Bank. The startup informed users that banking services on the Fi app would be discontinued as part of a business realignment, although customer accounts with Federal Bank would continue to remain active.

This came after cofounder Narayanan, in February, said Fi was restructuring its business and moving away from some consumer-facing offerings to focus on B2B AI and enterprise technology.

The startup has been rethinking its long-term business strategy amid cash constraints and slowing growth. As part of the reset, Fi planned to sunset some products and cut roles across teams.

Fi started as a digital-first consumer banking platform and gained early traction for its design-led app, savings tools and fraud protection features. However, Narayanan admitted that not all of the startup’s bets worked out as planned. 

Following an internal review, Fi decided to shift its focus towards building AI-driven systems for startups and large enterprises, marking a broader pivot towards a B2B model.

“This is not about effort or talent. It’s about how the company needs to be structured going forward,” Narayanan said then, adding that affected employees would be supported during the transition.

Fi’s reset follows years of weak monetisation and stalled growth in its core lending business. Once positioned as a digital-first banking app for young Indians, the startup struggled with high cash burn, slow revenue growth and repeated product cutbacks. Its lending business, which was once its main revenue driver, was also scaled back sharply.

The startup had earlier claimed it was building its own NBFC infrastructure, but it continued operating primarily as a loan distributor for RBI-registered lenders — a model that proved difficult to scale sustainably.

Fi’s pivot also comes amid broader challenges in India’s neobanking sector, where players such as Jupiter, Open and Niyo continue to rely on partnerships with traditional banks due to the absence of independent banking licences. This has limited operational autonomy and product innovation across the segment.

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