Fintech Unicorn Razorpay Marks International Foray, Buys Malaysian Startup Curlec In A $20 Mn Deal

Arguably one of the most valued fintech startups in the country – Razorpay has today marked its first foreign acquisition by acquiring a majority stake in Malaysia-based Curlec. The acquisition deal was close to $19 Mn to $20 Mn.  The deal is in line with Razorpay’s expansion plans to foray into Southeast Asia.

Curlec is a Kuala Lumpur-based fintech player that is building solutions for recurring payments for modern businesses of all sizes. Founded by Zac Liew and Steve Kucia in 2018, Curlec builds new-age technology solutions on top of existing payments infrastructure, to make it easier for companies to collect recurring payments and take control of their cash flows. 

Malaysia is one of the developing countries in Southeast Asia, which is witnessing a phenomenal growth in ecommerce. Razorpay, citing a report, said that ecommerce market growth in Malaysia is expected to touch $35 Bn by 2025, propelled by the emergence of new mobile payments methods. 

Razorpay on its acquisition of Curlec and strengthening its foothold in the region said that Curlec’s founders along with its team’s knowledge and expertise on Malaysia’s payment ecosystem and demography, will be the ideal partners for the company to expand into Malaysia. 

Razorpay in a statement further added that this acquisition will help both fintech players build and scale seamless payment solutions for Malaysia’s businesses and enable global payments for its Indian businesses. 

Harshil Mathur, CEO of Razorpay said, “With Curlec coming onboard, we at Razorpay are really excited as we mark our first step towards expanding in the South East Asia region. With the vast experience in a heterogenous market like India over the last seven years, our expansion to the Southeast Asia payments market is timed exactly to coincide with the company’s growing dominance in all things payments.”

This is also Razorpay’s fourth acquisition. Earlier the Bengaluru-based fintech startup had acquired TERA Finlabs in 2021, Opfin–a payroll and HRtech startup in 2019, and Thirdwatch a fraud analytics startup in 2018. 

Founded by Shashank Kumar and Harshil Mathur in 2014 as a payment gateway platform, Razorpay now offers SME payroll management, banking, lending, payments, and insurance needs. It claims to enable digital payments for more than 200K small and large businesses, including Airtel, BookMyShow, IRCTC, Aditya Birla Capital, NSE, Swiggy among others. For small businesses, the startup recently launched a real-time financial solutions FTX’21: MAGIC Checkout, RazorpayX Tax Payment Suite and Razorpay RIZE.

In December last year, Razorpay bagged $375 Mn in its Series F round co-led by Lone Pine Capital, Alkeon Capital, and TCV. The round also included participation from existing investors Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital India, GIC and Y Combinator. The round helped Razorpay’s valuation double from $3 Bn to $7.5 Bn.