Mumbai-based fintech Pelocal has raised $5 million in a Series A round led by UNLEASH Capital Partners and Unicorn India Ventures, with participation from select angel investors. The company said the capital will fuel product development and strengthen its go-to-market push for its AI-led payments orchestration platform.
What Pelocal does?
Founded in 2021, Pelocal helps large enterprises acquire, engage, and collect payments from customers within WhatsApp, positioning itself at the intersection of payments, communication, and enterprise tech. The company says it currently serves 40+ large enterprises across banking, transit, and utilities, reaching over 5 million monthly users. (WhatsApp has 700+ million active users in India, offering Pelocal a large surface for conversational commerce.)
Pelocal describes its stack as AI-led payments orchestration, software that routes and automates payment flows for enterprises while embedding the experience inside everyday messaging interfaces.
The fresh funds are earmarked to expand product capabilities and accelerate GTM, the company said.
Leadership’s view
Co-founder and CEO Vivekanand Tripathi said Pelocal aims to bring “last-mile payments to the masses via WhatsApp” by leveraging AI and advanced technologies, framing the raise as execution capital for that mission. Co-founder Vikas Garg pointed to strong market demand and investor backing as tailwinds for building “world-class products” at the payments-communication nexus.
Why investors are betting?
UNLEASH Capital Partners managing partner Natsuki Sugai said Pelocal is redefining enterprise customer interaction and transaction by embedding payments into conversational interfaces, with AI at the core, an approach Sugai believes can scale globally. Unicorn India Ventures managing partner Anil Joshi cited the surge in conversational commerce and embedded payments as a large, timely opportunity Pelocal is positioned to capture.
Traction and prior funding
Beyond its current enterprise footprint and monthly user reach, Pelocal previously raised $2 million in a seed round in October 2024, led by Unicorn India Ventures. The new round extends that trajectory as the company leans deeper into WhatsApp-native payments experiences for regulated sectors where reliability and scale matter.
In a payments market where conversion, routing reliability, and channel convenience decide outcomes, Pelocal’s WhatsApp-first, AI-driven orchestration bet gives enterprises a way to meet customers where they already are, while keeping payment flows programmable and efficient. With fresh capital in the bank and investor validation of the model, the company’s next leg hinges on shipping product faster and proving repeatable, large-account wins in India, before taking its playbook abroad.
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