These funds raised will be invested towards Razorpay’s mission of making finance frictionless by building a full-stack financial solutions company, solving for all payment and banking needs of businesses on one platform.
One of India’s fastest growing Fintech Unicorns, Razorpay, today announced its Series-F fundraise of around $375 Mn. With this funding round, the fintech major’s valuation increased to $7.5 Bn. This makes it the fastest increase in valuation for an Indian Unicorn in a year. Razorpay was valued at $1 Bn in October’20 and $3 Bn in April’21. With the Series-F round, the Fintech Major has raised a total of $740 Mn in investments since its inception in 2014.
Co-led by Lone Pine Capital, Alkeon Capital and TCV, the Series-F fundraise also received participation from existing investors like Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital India, GIC and Y Combinator. These funds raised will be invested towards Razorpay’s mission of making finance frictionless by building a full-stack financial solutions company, solving for all payment and banking needs of businesses on one platform. The company plans to use the funds to further scale up its Business Banking Suite, RazorpayX and offer new banking solutions in 2022 that will help businesses focus less on handling compliance & operations and more on growth. The full-stack financial solutions company also plans to invest in new acquisitions in 2022 and expand its presence across the globe, starting with the Southeast Asian countries. The Fintech Unicorn plans to hire over 600 employees to fuel these growth plans in India and overseas.
Globally, digitisation is triggering fundamental changes in the finance function. Small businesses realise that they cannot afford to lose time dealing with legacy systems and processes while there is a whole new generation of fintech that can help. Razorpay believes fintech is a way for small businesses to differentiate. Razorpay’s recently launched products at FTX’21: MAGIC Checkout, RazorpayX Tax Payment Suite and Razorpay RIZE, along with the freshly raised funds will strengthen the financial infrastructure of small companies with real-time intelligent solutions to do more and disrupt more.
Commenting on creating a track record and continuing to be one of India’s most valued organisations, Harshil Mathur, CEO and Co-Founder of Razorpay says, “It’s an exciting time of change we’re living in. We’ve come a long way in these seven years, and more so since 2020, and I’m filled with immense gratitude for the company to have travelled thus far. Throughout this journey, we’re humbled and excited to have had the opportunity and trust of 8Mn partner businesses. And now moving forward, we believe we will radically change how payments and banking is done in nearly every sector of India.”
He adds, “While these freshly infused funds will be used in multiple areas, the most important one will be towards investing in building intelligent technologies that will make the lives of small businesses easier by providing them a fundamentally different experience and reducing complexity. We want them to spend less time managing compliance and operations and invest more time in creating new products, building on new ideas and thinking scale. It’s great to know that our investors across the globe have continued to put their trust in this mission. This investment will help us take financial services up a notch and serve the underserved businesses and continue to build the central nervous system of Digital India.”
Today, the company’s neo-banking platform, RazorpayX is changing the business of banking rapidly and intelligently, powering over 25,000 Indian businesses to manage their money. Apart from product expansion of RazorpayX, the company is also looking at global expansion. Geographies like Southeast Asian (SEA) countries face similar payment problems like India and Razorpay will look to leverage its leadership in building intelligent payment products and learnings to ripe markets like SEA countries. Apart from this, Razorpay also plans to use the fundraise to double down investment in acquiring B2B SaaS companies that can help scale up operations while providing the highest standards of customer experience in the country.
Shashank Kumar, CTO and Co-Founder, Razorpay said, “One of our internal values is – “Everything we do, we do for our customer.” It’s something we as a team have been practising since Day-1. Over the last seven years, we’ve tirelessly worked towards making Razorpay a technology and product company which is people-first. If there is one thing the Razorpay team has committed to doing since 2014, it is to never stop reinventing. We want to create new products and build experiences that will change the lives of millions of businesses and consumers. Over the years, the feedback we’ve received from partner businesses has been quite encouraging and assured us that we’re on the right track. With the funds raised, we want to continue delivering a payment and banking experience that businesses will take advantage of and worry less”.
He added, “The growth of Razorpay is a testament to the enormous fintech adoption the country has witnessed. We at Razorpay are all set to create a larger dent in the fintech universe and with the help of new acquisitions and partnerships we will be able to build an A-class financial service infrastructure for India’s businesses.”
Of the 42 companies that were crowned as unicorns in 2021 alone, Razorpay powers payments for 34 of them! Razorpay has achieved $60 Bn TPV (Total Payment Volume) as of early December 2021. The company plans to achieve $90 Bn TPV by the end of 2022. Razorpay aims to further solidify its position as one of the largest full-stack fintech companies in the country. The company clocked over 300% YoY growth, second year in a row. Razorpay currently powers payments for over 8 million businesses including the likes of Facebook, Ola, Zomato, Swiggy, Cred, Muthoot Finance, National Pension System, Indian Oil, among others and is all set to reach 10 million businesses by 2022.
David Craver, Co-Chief Investment Officer at Lone Pine Capital said, “India’s B2B fintech sector is undergoing a period of rapid growth, and we are excited to partner with Razorpay, which has been at the forefront of creating resilient, innovative products to anticipate and address the changing needs of businesses.” He added, “Razorpay’s tenacity in building people-first technology solutions that facilitate seamless financial operations has garnered further momentum in the market. We look forward to working with Harshil, Shashank and the rest of the team to further the company’s sustained growth and impact on this dynamic sector.”
Deepak Ravichandran, General Partner at Alkeon Capital said, “As the leading online payments player in the rapidly accelerating Indian digital payments market, Razorpay has continued to innovate and blaze new trails. With a broad set of products across payments, banking, and software that provide a seamless end-to-end experience for merchants (who have been historically underserved by legacy payment providers) and geographic expansion on the horizon, we are thrilled to be partnering with Harshil, Shashank and his team who have continued to execute on their vision. We could not be more excited for the journey ahead.”
John Doran, General Partner at TCV said, “We are delighted to back Harshil, Shashank and the entire Razorpay team. We think they are building the next-generation payments and banking platform in India, and we look forward to supporting them on their mission and future expansion. We could not be more excited to partner with this founding team.”
Source: Business World
