Stripe and PayPal Just Bet on India's Xflow. Here's Why Cross‑Border B2B Payments Is the Next $70 Billion Frontier

Stripe and PayPal do not co‑invest. The two global payments titans have spent two decades competing for merchants, consumers and mindshare. They rarely appear on the same term sheet. In February 2026, they did. Bengaluru‑based Xflow announced a $16.6 million Series A round led by General Catalyst, with participation from existing investors Square Peg, Stripe, Lightspeed, Moore Capital — and PayPal Ventures joining as a new investor. The all‑equity round valued the startup at $85 million post‑investment, bringing its total funding to more than $32 million. With this, Xflow became the first Indian fintech backed by both Stripe and PayPal Ventures — the world's two largest payments infrastructure platforms. Why did two bitter rivals write cheques to the same startup? Because cross‑border B2B payments are a $59 trillion global market that remains stuck in the era of fax machines and manual bank transfers. And India, with its booming exports, SaaS economy and global capability centres (GCCs), is ground zero for fixing it.