Jun 13, 2022 · 41m · neon-show
How Open Became The 100th Unicorn - The Story of Asia's First Neo Bank ft. Anish Achuthan
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In this episode of the 100X Entrepreneur podcast, Open co-founder Anish Achuthan details his journey from a serial startup founder to building India's 100th unicorn, explaining how Open redefined SME neobanking into an integrated financial operating system. He breaks down Open's product architecture, strategic bank co-selling partnerships, unit economics, and hard-earned principles for building sustainable businesses during economic downturns.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
Siddhartha as informed peer 2.7 Guest teaching 2.9 Guest disagreement 0.4 Siddhartha pushing back 0.2
speaking balance: gold is Siddhartha, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 30:11 Pushing back on public bank sluggishness
Anish politely dismisses the host's premise that public sector banks are slow, citing SBI's developer portal and advanced APIs as counterexamples.
Hardest push from Siddhartha ▶ 27:18 Clarifying SME target definitionsSiddharth pushes Anish to specifically define who Open's users are, asking directly whether they are Kirana stores or freelancers.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 30:25 Educating on SBI's developer infrastructureAnish educates the host and listeners that SBI has built superior APIs (developer.sbi.com) compared to many private banks, dispelling common industry myths.
Siddhartha holds their own ▶ 28:11 Detailing top private bank distribution sharesSiddharth demonstrates domain knowledge by asking how current accounts are distributed and correctly naming India's top four private banks.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Siddhartha as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Siddhartha pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anish Achuthan's Early Life and Serial Entrepreneurial Journey | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Siddharth asks foundational biographical questions about Anish's early beginnings in Kerala and leaving home. Anish shares his entrepreneurial journey across multiple dotcom and fintech ventures in an open, reflective manner. | |
| Co-Founding Dynamics: Partnering with Mabel Chacko | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | The host inquires into the co-founding dynamic between Anish and his wife Mabel Chacko as well as lessons learned from past startup failures. Anish explains the importance of not building solely based on research reports or investor interest. | |
| Sponsor Spotlight: Prime Venture Partners with Sripati Acharya | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Following a sponsor spotlight, Siddharth asks about Open's core offerings. Anish provides a structured breakdown of Open Money, enterprise banking stacks, and the Zwitch infrastructure platform. | |
| Key Growth Milestones from Inception to Series B | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Siddharth prompts Anish on key growth milestones year by year, as well as current scale metrics and why he chose to keep scaling rather than sell. Anish outlines the progression from ICICI partnership to Tiger Global's investment. | |
| Building Open's Moat: Beyond Plain Vanilla Neobanking | 3 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Siddharth questions Open's moat amidst crowded neobanking competition. Anish reframes the category, stating that plain neobanking is insufficient and explaining why Open positions itself as a full financial operating system. | |
| Driving Customer Adoption Through Seamless Accounting Integration | 3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | The host asks about early product evolution from 100 to 1,000 customers. Anish details early innovations like dynamic virtual account numbers for automatic reconciliation and the impact of the Tally accounting plugin. | |
| SME Target Profiles and Co-Selling with Partner Banks | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Siddharth presses on target customer personas, asking if they are Kirana shops. Anish clarifies that Open serves formal micro and small businesses with substantial annual turnover, detailing co-selling dynamics with private partner banks. | |
| Public Sector Bank Capabilities and the Fintech Regulatory Landscape | 4 | 6 | 2 | 1 | Siddharth asks why public sector banks have lagged in fintech innovation. Anish counters the common misconception, educating the host on SBI's robust API infrastructure and outlining the indirect RBI regulatory compliance process. | |
| Partnering with ICICI Bank and Monetizing the Freemium Model | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Siddharth asks how Open secured its breakthrough partnership with ICICI and how it monetizes without charging for core banking. Anish explains the 80% free feature tier alongside SaaS subscriptions and interchange revenue splits. | |
| Navigating Recessions and Building Sustainable Startup Models | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Siddharth asks for founder advice on managing economic downturns. Anish reflects on macroeconomic cycles, highlighting that downturns eliminate undisciplined competition and encourage sustainable, revenue-focused models. | |
| Concluding Reflections and Future Podcast Guest Nominations | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Siddharth closes by asking Anish to nominate three future podcast guests. Anish recommends industry peers Amrish Rao, Ashish Kashyap, and his co-founder Deena Jacob, sharing brief anecdotes about each. |
Statements from this episode (19)
Co-Founding Couples Must Maintain Strict Professional Workplace Boundaries
“Probably when me and Mabel, we both started our first organization, we were probably really bad managers, basically, managers, and this also learned, made us, taught us, like, you know, how to behave family members, because we should not be able to actually ev…”
Founders Should Not Start Ventures Dependent on Short-Term Investor Funding
“Never build solutions just for investors or thinking that, okay, maybe I'll get started with some idea. And after three to six months, some investor will come and actually funded this thing. So now when I start something, I'll at least plan for the first 12 mo…”
Open's Enterprise Solution Is Deployed by 15 of India's Top 17 Banks
“So we have like the 15 out of the top 17 banks in India currently deploying our solution.”
Achuthan: India's Banking System Outperforms Banking in the Rest of the World
“Whatever, whatever complains or whatever we crib about the Indian banking system, I know that the Indian banking system is much better than what we have from the outside world.”
Open Serves 2.3M Small Businesses and Processes $30 Billion Annually
“So we have 2.3 million small businesses currently using the platform. And we process thirty billion US dollars in transactions for all of these users. And the current account deposits basically, which happens through the platform or which you manage on the pla…”
Open Co-Founder: Modern Customers Do Not Need Standalone Neobank Accounts
“So personally, if you ask me, like, I'm not a big believer of this new banking as a story, because I don't really believe that today's customers need another bank account onto it.”
Open Acquires SME Customers Using Financial Automation, Not Neobank Labels
“So we have always taken an approach of financial automation as entry point, as a hook to actually get a customer rather than telling him, okay, this is another new bank. So we don't even talk about it.”
Achuthan: Only One or Two Major Competitors Exist in Indian SME Neobanking
“And I'll also not, it's also because we probably, there are only one or two major competitors in the SME space. And a lot of this place have actually started new. So for example, they right now started building digital banking offering, and some of them has pa…”
ICICI Bank Branch Distribution Scaled Open From 100 to 1,000 Customers
“From hundred to a thousand was when, you know, ICICI bank started trialing this product to their, existing set of branches, customers, and selling to the existing branches to their customers. They found a lot of value.”
Launching a Tally Plugin Scaled Open Rapidly From 1,000 to 20,000 Users
“Then we start to build the tally plugin basically. And then it exponentially took it from thousand to 20,000 in no time, basically just because of this, a small feature, which we've got.”
Open Users Average ₹75 Lakhs Turnover, With 55% in Manufacturing
“It is probably businesses in our platform today also. They are like more than an average if you take around 75 lakhs of annual turnover. And these are like, you know, a B to B trader, a distributor, a manufacturing, you know, we also have freelancers. For exam…”
Open's Accounts Are Equally Distributed Across Its Top Five Banking Partners
“I would say this would distributed right now be almost equally distributed on the top four or five banking partners, which we have because today, like depending on the person of the customer.”
Open Is Partnering With Two Major Indian Public Sector Banks
“Probably this month we are the public state of banks, which everybody would relate to basically, and the, they're actually going live on our platform. So, and in fact, we are also helping them launch their SME new bank as well. So two of the public state of ba…”
Achuthan: SBI's Developer APIs Are Better Than Some Private Banks
“If you go to developer.sbi.com, they actually built much better APIs than some of the private banks.”
Indian Neobanks Are Indirectly Regulated Through Their Partner Banks
“Today neobanking is not fully directly regulated by RBI. The regulation is on the banks, the partner bank.”
Achuthan: 80% of Open's Platform Services Are Completely Free
“80% of our services are free on the platform, which means like practically banking, you can, even for services like our payroll, it's free up to 10 users.”
Up to 40% of Open's Revenue Comes Through Its Banking Partners
“I would say like around 30, 40 percentage of your revenues also comes not from your customers, but through your banking partners, basically from various services.”
Downturns Push Funded Startups to Cut Experiments, Easing Competition for Founders
“What would happen during this downturn or like if you have like the, for the next 12 to 24 months is that a lot of these larger companies or funded companies will be heavily focused on very sharp, focused on revenue generating products. Otherwise they would ha…”
Funding Crunches Will Force Fintechs to Halt Cashbacks and Slow Acquisition
“Let's look at this next two years, basically when there is a lot of funding crunch going to happen in the market. Fintechs would stop this cashbacks. They would actually, you know, slowing, slowing down on the customer acquisition. This is where banks would be…”