Razorpay Raises $375 Mn At $7.5 Bn Valuation; Plans Expansion Through Acquisitions

Bengaluru-based fintech unicorn Razorpay has raised $375 Mn in a Series F round, raising the startup’s valuation to $7.5 Bn, up from $3 Bn in April 2021. This also makes the fastest valuation hike for an Indian unicorn in a year.

Co-led by Lone Pine Capital, Alkeon Capital and TCV, the round also saw participation from existing investors Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital India, GIC and Y Combinator.

The funds raised will be used to further scale up its business banking suite-RazorpayX. The startup also plans to launch its new banking solutions in 2022, focus less on handling compliance and operations and more on growth for the fintech stakeholders.

With an aim to expand its presence across the globe, starting with the Southeast Asian countries, Razorpay will also invest in new acquisitions (B2B SaaS companies) in 2022. The fintech unicorn plans to hire over 600 employees to fuel the growth plans in India and overseas. The startup in July this year also acquired TERA Finlabs, an AI-based risk tech SaaS Platform, for an undisclosed amount.

Founded by Shashank Kumar and Harshil Mathur in 2014 as a payment gateway platform, Razorpay now offers SME payroll management, banking, lending, payments, meets insurance needs and others. The startup 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 real-time financial solutions FTX’21: MAGIC Checkout, RazorpayX Tax Payment Suite and Razorpay RIZE.

According to the startup, of the 42 companies that were crowned unicorns in 2021 alone, Razorpay powers payments for 34 of them. It has achieved $60 Bn TPV (Total Payment Volume) as of early December 2021 and plans to achieve $90 Bn TPV by the end of 2022.

It has clocked over 300% year-on-year growth and has more than 8 Mn businesses including Facebook, Ola, Zomato, Swiggy, CRED, Muthoot Finance, National Pension System, Indian Oil, among others in its kitty. Razorpay plans to reach 10 Mn businesses by 2022. Micro-blogging platform Twitter earlier this year integrated Razorpay to enable ‘tipping features for Indian users.

Earlier in April, Razorpay had closed its Series E round worth $160 Mn that was co-led by GIC, Sequoia Capital, along with Matrix Partners and Ribbit Capital. The round pegged Razorpay’s valuation at $3 Bn.

Last year, the startup entered the prestigious unicorn club after raising $100 Mn from Singapore’s GIC and existing investors Sequoia Capital, along with others. In 2019, Razorpay had raised $75 Mn in its Series C round at a valuation of $106.7 Mn. With the current round, it has raised $740 Mn in investments since its inception.