“In September 2025, axio was acquired by Amazon. For me, this acquisition isn’t the conclusion. It is an infusion of energy and resources that allows us to solve problems on an unprecedented scale.”
There is a specific moment in an Ironman race, somewhere around the 30th kilometre of the run, long after the swim and the cycle have drained your reserves, when your body tells you to stop. The muscles scream, the lungs burn, and the mind begins to manufacture logical reasons to quit.
I’ve spent a lot of time in that place, both as an athlete and as a founder. Over the years, I’ve realised that the discipline of training isn’t just about physical fitness, but also about building a reservoir of mental resilience.
When we started out as Capital Float back in 2013, we were fuelled by the raw, often naïve, optimism that defines every founder. We wanted to solve the credit gap for India’s SMEs. But the path of a founder is rarely a straight line. It is a series of setbacks, pivots and the relentless need to endure.
This realisation didn’t come easily. I had to face my share of gut-wrenching disappointments before I found my anchor to navigate the tumultuous waters that have defined the Indian fintech landscape over the last decade.
The Black Swans and the Burnout
The life of an entrepreneur is often romanticised, but the reality is a relentless carousel of macro shocks. We had barely processed the structural shifts of the pandemic when a succession of black swan events hit the world.
For the financial services space, it felt like the ground was constantly shifting. We saw India’s fintech funding shrink from $3.1 billion in early 2021 to a more cautious $1.5 billion by mid-2025. Meanwhile, the cost of capital soared as central banks worldwide fought inflation.
In moments like these, it is incredibly easy to succumb to decision fatigue. This is where my personal fitness journey came to the fore. When the world outside was in chaos, my physical training routine became my sanctuary. It was where I processed the stress, found clarity and built the endurance to walk into the office and lead with a steady hand. The rigorous routine helped me realise that to endure the worst, each one of us must find a reason to continue.
Reinvention: The Courage to Pivot
Resilience is often mistaken for stubbornness. To me, true resilience is the courage to admit when a path is no longer viable, and I need to rebuild.
Our decision to pivot from SME lending to Consumer Finance met with surprise, resistance and criticism, but we knew that in the face of headwinds and pointed questions, we had to evolve. Just as one would recalibrate their pace during a race when the terrain changes, we recalibrated our business. We pivoted, unifying all our brands to become axio with an unwavering focus on the consumer.
It wasn’t easy. While the Indian economy showed remarkable resilience compared to its global peers, there was a sharp regulatory glare on the unsecured lending space in India. Navigating these shifts required more than just business acumen; it required a marathon mindset and an unwavering adherence to compliance and norms. I describe this as the ability to stay patient when progress feels slow and the grit to keep moving when the wind is in your face.
The Human Element of Leadership
My fitness journey started as a way to fix myself, but it ended up fixing how I lead.
When you push your body to its limits, you develop a profound sense of empathy for yourself and others. During the darkest days of the pandemic and the subsequent market crashes, my priority wasn’t just the profit or loss. It was the mental well-being of my team. We leaned into a culture of transparency and endurance. I didn’t want us to merely survive the shocks but to use them as a forge to sharpen our focus on unit economics and sustainable growth.
A New Starting Line
In September 2025, axio crossed a significant milestone: we were acquired by Amazon.
In the traditional sense, this is the finish line -- when you break the tape, stop running, and let the cheers wash over you. But as any endurance athlete will tell you, the end of one race is simply the beginning of the training block for the next.
When I think about where this milestone sits in my journey, I keep coming back to a feeling I know well from racing: the moment you realise you're no longer running alone. For over a decade, we built axio with the scrappiness and stubbornness of a solo athlete — managing our own pace, carrying our own fuel, making do with whatever we had in our pockets. Joining Amazon didn’t erase that identity. It amplified it. It's the difference between training on an empty road and suddenly having access to the best support, while still being the one who has to put one foot in front of the other.
For me, this acquisition isn’t the conclusion. It is an infusion of energy and resources that allows us to solve problems at a scale never before. That alignment between Amazon's Day 1 philosophy -- being constantly curious, nimble, and experimental -- and the endurance mindset we've cultivated over 12 years isn't a coincidence. It's why this partnership feels less like an exit and more like an entrance.
The race is long, and we’re just getting started!
The author is Co-Founder & MD of axio, formerly Capital Float, one of India's leading consumer finance companies. Views expressed are personal.