HiwiPay Secures $2 Million in Funding Led by Unicorn India Ventures

• ByStartupStory     |    February 27, 2025

HiwiPay, a cross-border payments platform, has secured $2 million in a seed funding round led by Unicorn India Ventures. The round also saw participation from co-founder Dewang Neralla’s family office, Jupiter Metaverse LLP, and angel investors including Ritesh Malik, Mitesh Shah, and Nilesh Doshi. The funds are earmarked for expanding HiwiPay’s trade remittance business and scaling operations in the education remittance sector.

Founded by Dewang Neralla, Geeta Chauhan, and Ujwal Tamminedi, HiwiPay offers a digital platform that simplifies international payments for students, parents, and businesses by providing competitive exchange rates and real-time tracking. 

Over the past year, the company has onboarded more than 500 study-abroad consultants to facilitate student remittances and is now launching the HiwiPay Student App in the United Kingdom, with plans to expand into Europe. Additionally, HiwiPay has partnered with banks and non-banking financial companies to assist individuals in securing education loans.

Beyond education payments, HiwiPay is venturing into the SME trade remittance market, aiming to support exporters and importers in managing cross-border transactions. The company also plans to introduce co-branded forex cards and other financial services tailored for students. In the next 12 to 18 months, HiwiPay aims to onboard 5,000 international students, double its network of education consultants to 1,000, process $100 million in remittances, and support 1,000 SME exporters with trade remittance solutions.

Anil Joshi, Managing Partner at Unicorn India Ventures, commented on the investment: “There are major complexities of cross-border transactions, and HiwiPay is tapping into this potential to make the process much easier. We have witnessed significant growth and believe HiwiPay’s highly innovative business model is ripe for disruption because of changing customer demands, emerging market growth, and financial inclusion.”

This funding round follows a previous pre-seed investment of ₹7.2 crore in 2023, also led by Unicorn India Ventures and the Unmaj Group family office.

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