In a sign of how India’s fintech innovation is going global, cross-border payments startup Zynk has raised $5 million in a seed round led by Hivemind Capital, with participation from Alliance DAO, Coinbase Ventures, Transpose Platform VC, Polymorphic Ventures, Contribution Capital, and Tykhe Ventures.
Founded in April 2025 by Prashanth Swaminathan (ex-Woodstock Fund), Manish Bhatia (ex-CTO, Amazon Pay India), and Abhishek Pitti (IBC Media), Zynk is building an infrastructure that aims to make global money movement instant and liquidity-free, eliminating the need for pre-funded accounts that have long dominated cross-border settlement systems.
Cracking the liquidity moat
Zynk’s pitch is straightforward, but ambitious: it says it wants to eliminate capital drag that payment companies have to endure when maintaining overseas liquidity pools. The company’s infrastructure enables payment providers, B2B platforms and remittance operators to settle transactions across borders in real-time without pre-funding local accounts.
The technology sits quietly in the background, an “invisible pipe” that connects banks and payment systems through blockchain-based rails while keeping the compliance layer fully visible.
“We’re building the pipes that make global payments instant,” said Swaminathan, who believes access to just-in-time liquidity is what will unlock true financial interoperability across markets.
Expansion, compliance and corridors
With the fresh funds, Zynk plans to expand its currency corridors (currently spanning USD, EUR, AED, INR, MXN, and PHP), strengthen compliance and security infrastructure, and grow its partnerships with banks, fintechs, and global payment processors.
Since launch, Zynk claims to have recorded nearly 70% month-on-month growth, fuelled by demand from exporters, remittance players, and B2B platforms that need faster, predictable settlements without tying up working capital.
The market Zynk is entering
The cross-border payments segment is one of fintech’s most competitive and regulatory-heavy spaces. Traditional SWIFT systems still rely on multiple intermediaries, causing delays and high costs. Many fintechs have built workarounds by parking money in local accounts, but that approach locks up billions of dollars globally.
India, meanwhile, is emerging as a hub for compliant, API-driven global payments. Startups such as Skydo, which recently received the RBI’s Payment Aggregator–Cross Border licence, and larger players like Paytm and PayPal, which have begun offering UPI-linked international payments, are actively reimagining how money moves between countries.
Zynk’s approach is different, it is not competing on the consumer side but rather building the rails beneath these players.
For Zynk, the next few months will be about proving scale and trust—two elements that define survival in the global payments space. The startup will need to show that its liquidity-free settlement system can truly deliver instant cross-border transfers while staying within the tight guardrails of international compliance. Its roadmap includes expanding corridor coverage, onboarding more fintech partners, and tightening its regulatory and risk frameworks to the standards expected by global banks and payment processors.
If it succeeds, Zynk could quietly become one of the core infrastructure players shaping how India-linked money moves across borders.
It’s a bet on invisible infrastructure-the financial plumbing that keeps capital flowing seamlessly-rather than flashy consumer apps. With its $5 million seed round, Zynk isn’t trying to be the next fintech disruptor-it’s trying to be the plumber of global finance, building the pipes where cash no longer waits to move.
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