With $160 mn funding round, Razorpay valuation triples

Bengaluru based fintech startup Razorpay has raised $160 million in a growth round of funding, led by returning investors Sequoia India and Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC.

Ribbit Capital and Matrix Partners also participated in the round, which has tripled the startup’s valuation to $3 billion in less than six months, a statement said on Monday. This marks one of the fastest valuation increases in the Indian unicorn space.

Razorpay attained the coveted unicorn status ($1 billion valuation) after it raised a $100 million Series D round of funding in October 2020.  

Including the latest round, the startup has raised about $366.5 million so far, the statement added.

The fresh funds will be used by the company to expand its footprint to Southeast Asian markets, such as Malaysia and Singapore, scale up its neo banking suite (RazorpayX) with new products, and invest in acquiring B2B financial SaaS startups to better serve its merchant base.

“... We believe there’s a dire need to develop new banking technologies that meet the rising demand. And so, we plan to use these funds to further expand our banking and lending product suite so that we not only provide a better experience to businesses and their customers but significantly contribute to the growth of our partner businesses,” Harshil Mathur, CEO of Razorpay, said.

Founded in 2014 by Mathur and Shashank Kumar, the startup offers a payment gateway that accepts, processes, and disburses money for small businesses and enterprises, helping them manage collections and money flow seamlessly online.  

It also provides a small and medium business (SMB) lending platform called Razorpay Capital and a Buy Now Pay Later payment option.

Razorpay claims to serve more than five million businesses, including Swiggy, Zomato, Ola, 1Mg, BookMyShow, Treebo, Quikr, Airtel, and Cred, with its payment solutions.  

In light of the Covid-19 situation and the growing convenience of digital payments in general, Razorpay has been seeing significant adoption from SMBs and customers, growing at about 40-45% month-on-month over the last six months.

Just a week ago, the company said digital payment transactions on its platform were up 76% in the quarter ended March 2021, compared to a year ago. It also saw increased online transactions (over 50% of all transactions) from tier 2 and tier 3 cities during the reported period.