OnGrid acquires Ancora to create a single platform for onboarding, trust and channel growth

OnGrid Group has acquired Ancora, a Gurugram-based provider of AI-driven incentives and commission management solutions, in a move aimed at creating a unified platform for onboarding, trust, compliance and channel growth across India's financial services sector.

The acquisition brings together OnGrid's verification and onboarding infrastructure with Ancora's sales channel management capabilities, creating an integrated offering for banks and non-banking financial companies seeking to manage distributors, agents and customers through a single platform.

The announcement comes shortly after the Reserve Bank of India issued guidelines governing the engagement of third-party agents for sales and collections, increasing industry focus on transparency, compliance and oversight across distribution networks.

From point verification to lifecycle management

With the transaction, OnGrid Group is expanding beyond standalone verification services and positioning itself as a broader trust and onboarding operating system for the BFSI sector.

According to the company, the combined platform will allow financial institutions to:

• Onboard customers, vendors and channel partners

• Verify identities and credentials

• Activate and manage stakeholders across the lifecycle

• Monitor compliance and operational performance

• Track incentives, commissions and productivity

The objective is to create a single workflow covering the journey from onboarding and verification through to performance management and payouts.

Ancora brings scale in channel management

Founded in 2019 by Aman Garg, Rahul Singh and Rohit Panwar, Ancora provides technology platforms that help financial institutions acquire customers, expand distribution networks and manage sales performance.

Its flagship Incentives & Commission Management platform currently:

• Manages more than 300,000 sales agents and employees

• Serves over 15 banks and NBFCs

• Processes more than ₹650 crore in commissions every month

The company uses AI-driven and gamified incentive systems designed to improve sales productivity and channel engagement.

As part of the acquisition, founders Rohit Panwar, Aman Garg and Rahul Singh will join OnGrid's leadership team.

Commenting on the transaction, Panwar said Ancora had worked closely with OnGrid across vendor onboarding and credit origination processes.

"Ancora has been an extensive user of OnGrid's services across vendor onboarding and credit origination journeys, so we've seen first-hand what Piyush, Vineet, and the team have built," he said.

Panwar added that OnGrid's growth journey and customer-centric approach aligned closely with Ancora's own philosophy.

Addressing two challenges in lending

For OnGrid, the acquisition is as much about distribution as it is about verification.

Piyush Peshwani, CEO and Co-founder of OnGrid, said financial institutions continue to face challenges in both verifying stakeholders and managing distribution networks efficiently.

"India's lending ecosystem has a distribution problem as much as it has a verification problem," said Peshwani.

He noted that the company's ambition extends beyond providing verification APIs.

"The winners in BFSI infrastructure will not be the companies that sell the most API calls; they will be the ones that own the workflows where trust and revenue are created."

According to Peshwani, Ancora adds a channel productivity layer to OnGrid's existing verification infrastructure, enabling financial institutions to manage the journey from onboarding an agent to processing the first payout within a single system.

Building infrastructure for the BFSI ecosystem

The acquisition reflects OnGrid's broader ambition to become a foundational infrastructure provider for India's financial services sector.

The company said the combined platform will support how lenders:

• Discover and onboard distribution partners

• Verify stakeholders and maintain compliance

• Manage sales channels and performance

• Track incentives and payouts

• Improve audit readiness and operational transparency

Ancora's roadmap also includes AI-led capabilities across customer acquisition, credit decisioning and intelligent asset valuation, areas that could further strengthen the combined offering.

Focus on trust and productivity

The combined proposition is built around what the companies describe as "channel trust and channel productivity".

For financial institutions, the expected benefits include:

• Reduced onboarding time

• Lower mis-selling risk

• Faster activation of channel partners

• Improved payout accuracy

• Cleaner audit trails

• Fewer technology vendors across the distribution ecosystem

As regulatory scrutiny increases and financial institutions seek greater efficiency across customer acquisition and distribution, the acquisition signals a growing demand for platforms that combine compliance, verification, onboarding and revenue-generating workflows in a single operating environment.

For OnGrid, the deal marks a significant step towards becoming an end-to-end infrastructure provider for India's lending and financial services ecosystem, bringing trust, compliance and channel growth onto one platform.

New leaders, fresh capital, workforce shifts and unfiltered conversations — the story of work unfolds here.