Pioneering Payments: Amrish Rau’s FinTech Journey

Paying for things digitally is now a part of daily life – but this wasn’t always the case. In 2013, long before the reality of cashless payments had become the norm in many parts of India and the world, Amrish Rau co-founded Citrus Pay, an online payment provider built with a mobile-first focus. This was one of many ventures in his two-decades-long journey to pioneer India’s payment ecosystem in the digital age, culminating in his most recent appointment as CEO of Pine Labs. On this episode of Moonshot, Peak XV Managing Director, Shailendra Singh, speaks with Amrish about his early life and how it defined his approach to company-building, his transition from Citrus Pay to Pine Labs, and how building a company with a heart will help a startup as it scales.

Show notes:

• From passbook printer salesman to CEO [4:04]
• Focus on product-market fit and get cheesy [8:36]
• Retiring at 40 and other startup exit myths [15:02]
• The Pine Labs approach to digital payments [21:20]
• “Be nice to everybody” and other advice for startup founders [26:30]
• Stay unsatisfied [29:10]