Scapia is a Bengaluru startup that combines a travel booking app with co-branded credit cards built for younger Indian travellers. The Scapia travel fintech has now raised $63 million, or about ₹600 crore, in a new round led by General Catalyst. That matters because travel rewards in India are still split across clunky bank cards, booking sites, and loyalty systems that rarely talk to each other. Anil Goteti founded Scapia in 2022 to turn that mess into one product for Gen Z and millennial users.
What is Scapia and how does it work?
Scapia gives users a co-branded travel credit card and an app where they can book flights, hotels, and domestic transport in one place. The card is issued through partners Federal Bank and BOBCARD, and the company has pushed the product beyond a plain rewards card by tying spending and booking into a single experience. Redemptions sit there too. It was also the first company in India to launch a dual-network co-branded card spanning Visa and RuPay.
That stack has expanded fast. Scapia added Scapia Pay, an in-app UPI product that lets users link eligible RuPay cards and earn travel rewards on everyday QR payments. It also rolled out add-on cards and a BBPS-based bill payment flow so users can track and pay credit card bills across banks without hopping between apps.
Then there’s the non-card layer. Scapia Store sells travel-heavy gear and lifestyle items from brands such as Columbia, Daily Objects, Tripole, Nasher Miles, XYXX, and Assembly across categories like apparel, accessories, gadgets, luggage, and travel gear. Scapia Experiences is an AI-powered trip discovery tool. It suggests and books packages based on budget, time, and personal preference.
In practice, that means a customer can move from paying with UPI to earning rewards. Then book a flight and buy luggage inside the same product. That’s the real pitch. Not just a better card, but fewer moving parts than the old setup of using one bank app, one OTA, one rewards portal, and then a spreadsheet in your head.
Who founded Scapia travel fintech and what has it built?
The founding story
Anil Goteti started Scapia in 2022 and serves as founder and CEO. The company is based in Bengaluru. The idea is clear: build a travel-first financial product for Indians who don’t see travel as an occasional luxury anymore, but as a regular part of how they spend and plan.
That idea didn’t come out of nowhere. Goteti spent years at Flipkart, where he rose to senior vice president roles, after an earlier stint at McKinsey. He also co-founded Protonn before Scapia. So he didn’t arrive as a first-time operator guessing at consumer internet behavior. He’d already spent years inside India’s online commerce machine.
Why Goteti had market fit
Because Scapia sits at the intersection of consumer tech, payments, and travel, founder-market fit matters here. Goteti’s Flipkart run gave him direct exposure to customer acquisition and category building. It also gave him a close look at the messiness of Indian consumer behavior. McKinsey gave him the strategy layer. Protonn, even though short-lived, added startup reps.
That mix helps explain why Scapia doesn’t look like a plain card startup. It behaves more like a consumer app with a financial product at the center. And that’s probably what General Catalyst is buying into as much as the travel thesis itself.
Traction, fundraising, and competition
Scapia’s product is live, and last year it resumed selling its co-branded cards after a year-long pause linked to regulatory and customer issues. The comeback had momentum behind it. Over the past year, flight bookings on the platform grew 5x to 6x, while hotel stays increased 8x, and Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities are making up a growing share of bookings.
On the funding side, General Catalyst led the new $63 million round, with Peak XV Partners and Z47 also participating. Scapia had raised $40 million in April 2025 in a Series B led by Peak XV, with Elevation Capital and Z47 joining that round. With the fresh capital, total funding has now reached $135 million. A big chunk will go into brand building and expanding the customer base across India. It’ll also fund hiring across AI-heavy functions and strengthen the product suite.
Competition is real, and it’s messy. Some rivals are co-branded travel cards tied to portals like ixigo, MakeMyTrip, Yatra, and EaseMyTrip. Others are legacy bank travel cards or standalone forex products. Scapia’s angle is that it doesn’t stop at issuance. It wraps card usage and UPI rewards into the same app as bookings, shopping, and trip discovery. That makes it less like a single-purpose card and more like a travel rewards operating system.
Why did General Catalyst back Scapia now?
This round looks less like survival capital and more like an acceleration bet.
Scapia says a significant share of the money will go toward brand building. That tells you something important. The product suite is broader now, but awareness still needs work. Travel rewards are crowded, and lots of people will only switch cards if the offer is obvious, simple, and constantly visible. Brand spend isn’t glamorous. It’s probably necessary.
The AI angle matters too. Scapia wants an AI-first approach across products and teams. That doesn’t just mean slapping chat into the app. If the company can use AI to improve trip planning and personalize offers, it could make the app stickier. It could also reduce friction inside support or underwriting-adjacent workflows. General Catalyst’s own comments around “new behaviors” suggest that’s the bet here: a travel habit wrapped around a financial identity, not the other way around.
But let’s not over-romanticize it. Scapia is still in build mode, and the numbers show that. In FY25, net loss narrowed 6% to ₹83 crore from ₹87.9 crore a year earlier. Operating revenue rose 71% to ₹28.7 crore from ₹16.8 crore. Including other income of ₹11.6 crore, total income reached ₹40.4 crore. Solid growth signals. Not proof that the model is fully settled.
How big is India’s travel fintech opportunity?
The market tailwinds are obvious.
India’s credit card market was worth $20.1 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach $39.5 billion by 2034, according to IMARC. Monthly credit card transactions hit 496 million in September 2025. By late 2025, UPI-linked credit card transactions accounted for around 40% of total credit card transaction volume. If you’re building a rewards-led card product that also wants everyday payment behavior, those numbers are a giant green light.
Travel demand is moving the same way. Skift says Indian outbound travel in 2023 was 110% above 2019 levels, with the country’s middle class already at 31% of the population. RedSeer’s travel market work pegged India’s total travel market at about $75 billion in FY20, with a path to more than $125 billion by FY27. Different research firms use different cuts. But the direction is the same: more travel, more digital booking, more payment volume attached to it.
That’s why Scapia exists now and not 10 years ago. UPI changed everyday payment habits. Co-branded cards got easier to distribute. Younger users got more comfortable managing money, rewards, and bookings inside one app. And Indian travel stopped being a once-a-year event for a lot of affluent and aspirational consumers.
What should you watch next from Scapia travel fintech?
The next thing to watch isn’t just card issuance.
It’s whether Scapia can turn this broader app strategy into habit. If Scapia Pay lifts repeat engagement, if AI-led trip discovery improves booking conversion, and if brand spending helps it win beyond metro users, then this round will look smart in hindsight. If not, it risks becoming another expensive co-branded card story with extra tabs in the app.
For now, the Scapia travel fintech story stands out because it’s trying to own a behavior, not just a transaction. That’s harder. It’s also where the upside is.
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FAQ
– What is the latest Scapia funding round?
Scapia raised $63 million in May 2026 in a round led by General Catalyst. Peak XV Partners and Z47 also joined, taking the company’s total capital raised to $135 million. The fresh money is earmarked for brand building, AI-focused hiring, product development, and expansion across India.
– How does Scapia work for travellers?
Scapia works as a travel-and-payments app built around a co-branded credit card. Users can book flights and hotels in the app. They can also book domestic transport, earn rewards through card and UPI spending, pay bills through BBPS, and use features like Scapia Store and Scapia Experiences.
– Who founded Scapia?
Scapia was founded in 2022 by Anil Goteti, a former Flipkart executive. Before Scapia, he worked at McKinsey and also co-founded Protonn, which gave him a mix of consumer internet, strategy, and startup execution experience.
– Is Scapia a credit card company or a travel company?
It’s really both. Scapia sits in the travel fintech category, using a co-branded card as the entry point while building a broader product around bookings, rewards, UPI payments, and travel discovery for Gen Z and millennial users.
