Razorpay Becomes Fifth Fintech Unicorn After Raising $100 Mn in Series D Funding

Payments solutions startup Razorpay said on Monday it has entered the coveted unicorn club after raising USD 100 million (about INR 731 crore) in Series D funding round led by Sequoia Capital India and Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC.

Razorpay

The latest fundraise, which has more than doubled the company's valuation to cross USD 1 billion, also saw participation from Ribbit Capital and the company's early backers Y Combinator, Matrix Partners and Tiger Global.

The Bengaluru-based company is India's 32nd unicorn and fifth to enter the club amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. Razorpay is the fifth fintech unicorn, with Paytm, BillDesk, Pine Labs and Zerodha being the others.

Founded in 2014 by IIT Roorkee alumni Shashank Kumar and Harshil Mathur, Razorpay provides comprehensive payments and banking solutions to businesses. Currently, it claims to serve over 5 million businesses, including Airtel, BookMyShow, Facebook, Ola, Zomato, Swiggy, Cred and ICICI Prudential, among others and aims to double this to 10 million by the end of 2020. The company plans to achieve this on the back of the phenomenal growth it has witnessed in the last six months as Covid-19 led disruptions prompted businesses to switch to digital payment solutions.

"We will power payments and banking for 50 million businesses by 2025. We will continue to make an impactful contribution to the growth of the industry, aid adoption in the under-served markets and drive new practices and a new thinking for the industry to follow," said co-founder and CEO Mathur.

Harshil Mathur, co-founder and CEO, Razorpay

The company said it plans to deploy the new funds to further strengthen its two new product lines—RazorpayX, neo-banking platform and lending arm Razorpay Capital—, invest in new initiatives to empower small and medium businesses and hire about 500 employees by FY2021.

Commenting on RazorpayX's journey so far, Mathur said "Over the last six months, RazorpayX, the neo-banking platform has witnessed 100 per cent growth, primarily because we built the product zero-up solely from the eyes of the customers' needs." The company targets 200 per cent growth of RazorpayX by FY2021.

The fintech company claims to have clocked 500 per cent growth in 2019 and 300 per cent growth in the last six months alone. "The significant demand for digital payments has accelerated Razorpay's growth during the pandemic," the company statement said.

"India has made significant strides in establishing a digital payments eco-system and Razorpay has established itself as a clear leader, with its strong focus on customer experience and product innovation. GIC has a long track record of partnering with leading FinTech companies globally and is delighted to partner with Razorpay in its journey to transform payments and bankin," said Choo Yong Cheen, Chief Investment Officer for Private Equity at GIC.