AI Neobanking Meets Kirana

Entrepreneur

2 days ago

BranchX has already clocked INR 110 crore in annual revenue and is gearing up for the launch of its next flagship AI product
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Walk into any corner shop in India—the kind where the cashier is a one-man army juggling payments, inventory, and sometimes local gossip—and you'll get a glimpse of the country's economic engine in action. But look closer, and you'll also see a centuries-old system in need of an upgrade. That's where BranchX comes in, and they're not handing out patch fixes. They're rebuilding the machine with voice, AI, and a deep understanding of the street level chaos that defines India's small retail landscape.
Founded by Sajid Jamal and Rajesh Johnny, BranchX is not your typical fintech darling chasing buzzwords. It's a battle hardened, AI-first neobanking platform aimed squarely at India's underserved small retailers. "We're building a future where small businesses access finance as simply as speaking their language and running their shop," says Jamal.
At the heart of BranchX's offering is the Xenie Retail PoS, a multilingual, voice-led device that blends billing, collections, inventory, and payments into one seamless experience. Think Alexa meets UPI, but with more grit and a lot more rupees. It's not just a fancy machine—it's a nerve center for neighborhood stores, capable of offering personalized credit, real-time reconciliation, and cash flow analytics. And for the 300,000+ merchants already hooked into their 10xfi platform, that connectivity is proving transformative. The numbers speak loud and clear: over INR 6,000 crore in gross transaction value flows through the 10xfi platform. And more than 10,000 retailers are now digitized via Xenie Retail PoS.
But BranchX isn't here to boast. It's here to level the playing field, especially for small businesses that have historically operated outside the reach of formal financial systems. By blending connected banking with vernacular, voice-enabled tech, the company has created what it calls "a digitally intelligent ecosystem" for India's micro-merchants. The goal? To turn digitally hesitant retailers into confident players in the new economy.
"The real challenge isn't technology—it's trust," says Johnny. "While tech is scalable, enabling digital fluency among first-time banking users is not. We tackle this with voice-led interfaces, guided onboarding, and AI that learns from users to build confidence." That's not just user-friendly design, it's a moat, and a wide one at that.
BranchX's approach isn't just smart; it's strategic. Its modular, cloud-first infrastructure is built to scale, and its R&D labs are experimenting with Agentic AI and GenAI to automate processes and deepen personalization. Features like voice-led business insights, inventory prompts, and AI-driven credit scoring are already live, reshaping how retail owners think about finance—not as a hassle, but as a partner. With such groundwork, the road to profitability doesn't look like a tightrope walk, it looks like a highway.
BranchX has already clocked INR 110 crore in annual revenue and is gearing up for the launch of its next flagship product: Xenie, the AI assistant machine that will sit right on retail counters, dishing out voice-led insights and financial nudges in real time. The company expects this to unlock high-margin revenue via premium services and cross-sell opportunities. And they're not stopping at India's borders. While domestic expansion will see the number of Xenie Retail PoS devices leap from 10,000 to over 200,000, BranchX is also eyeing the Middle East. "We're entering select Middle East markets through strategic partnerships," says Jamal, hinting at a bold new frontier for the homegrown fintech.
On the back end, the company is getting ready to open the floodgates to fintech innovation. BranchX is productizing its embedded finance APIs and will soon launch a developer ecosystem—essentially a sandbox for third-party builders to craft custom solutions atop BranchX's infrastructure. It's an open invitation for fintech creativity to thrive on a platform already wired for scale. To fuel this ambitious blueprint, BranchX has secured a $5 million capital commitment from existing investors.
But instead of blowing through it in one go, they've structured it as a flexible capital call over 10 months. It's lean, it's calculated, and it gives them the breathing room to stay execution-focused. BranchX stands out for one reason: it talks like the shopkeepers it serves. And in doing so, it's not just bridging the digital divide—it's quietly laying down the rails for a retail revolution.