Building Through The Breakdowns: Souradeep Ganguly’s Journey From Banking To Fintech

Souradeep Ganguly is the founder of Sapphiro, a fintech platform focused on B2B payments and working capital solutions, including Invorush, which serves the MSME segment. He brings over a decade of experience in banking, having worked across trading, institutional and SME lending, and trade finance and forex training at ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, and IDFC FIRST Bank. He holds an MBA in Banking and Finance from TAPMI and an MBA in Finance and Strategy from IIM Kozhikode. His work focuses on addressing inefficiencies in working capital access and improving how businesses access and manage finance.

For Souradeep Ganguly, the gap between a bank’s processes and a business’s everyday needs became the starting point for entrepreneurship. After more than a decade in banking, he had seen how businesses could qualify for credit yet struggle to access it when payments, payroll and supplier commitments fell due.

Today, as Managing Director and CEO of Sapphiro, Ganguly is building a fintech platform focused on B2B payments and working capital access. Through Invorush, its work extends to the MSME segment, addressing the friction that can stand between credit eligibility and timely access to funds.

His route to this point has involved a withdrawn job offer, failed demonstrations and a sharp contraction in transaction volumes—experiences that have shaped both his business and his approach to building it.

Born in Calcutta in 1987, Ganguly attended Kendriya Vidyalaya before studying engineering at Bharath University. He describes himself as an average student. An offer from L&T appeared to provide a clear professional starting point, but the recession intervened before he could join.

He began instead as a junior trader earning ₹20,000 a month. Work took him across Chennai, Bengaluru and Kolkata before he moved into commercial banking, with roles at ICICI Bank and Axis Bank spanning institutional and SME lending. Later, he trained banking teams on trade finance and foreign exchange at IDFC FIRST Bank.

These experiences gave him a close view of how working capital moves—and where it gets delayed. They also informed a conviction that now underpins Sapphiro: many working capital challenges arise from friction in delivering credit to businesses that already qualify for it.

His entrepreneurial ambitions developed while he was still employed full-time. Building a business without an established network meant repeatedly having to establish his credibility before he could explain his ideas.

An MBA in Banking and Finance from TAPMI, Manipal, helped open doors. A second MBA in Finance and Strategy from IIM Kozhikode strengthened that foundation further. Ganguly went on to start Sapphiro in 2020.

The early demonstrations were far from polished. During his first client presentation, the code broke live. A similar failure occurred during a pitch to NPCI. Yet, as he recalls, the underlying idea continued to find support.

A more consequential setback followed growth. According to Ganguly, Sapphiro reached monthly transaction volumes of ₹2,500 crore at its peak before an RBI circular affected a substantial part of the business, bringing volumes down to approximately ₹600–700 crore.

Having anticipated the risk, he had already begun developing the next business direction. That preparation gave the company a basis on which to rebuild.

Today, Ganguly describes Sapphiro as bootstrapped and profitable. Its focus on working capital infrastructure brings together his experience in lending, payments and the practical demands of running a business.

His journey offers a grounded perspective on entrepreneurship: credibility takes time, growth can be disrupted, and preparation matters when the business environment shifts. For Ganguly, the task now is to apply those lessons to a problem he first encountered inside banking—helping finance reach businesses with less friction.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/souradeep-ganguly/