Razorpay Enters Unicorn Club with its Latest Fundraising of $100 Million


Razorpay Enters Unicorn Club with its Latest Fundraising of $100 Million

Digital payment platform, Razorpay has raised $100 million in the funding round led by Singapore’s GIC and its existing investor Sequoia India. With this funding Razorpay ventures into the unicorn club, many Indian startups has made up for the unicorn club in 2020 and Razorpay is the sixth company to join the club this year after gateway BillDesk, insurtech startup PolicyBazaar, Flipkart-owned PhonePe, and more. These companies were valued at more than $1 billion in 2018.

In the series D funding round the company’s other existing partners has also participated that includes Matrix Partners, Tiger Global, Ribbit Capital, and Y Combinator. Razorpay has raised $206.5 million since its inception in 2014 that also includes $75 million in the previous round of fundraising held last year.

Harshil Mathur, Chief Executive, and Co-Founder, Razorpay says, “GIC is a good long-term investor to have. Their knowledge about public markets and investment in firms like Bajaj Finserv Ltd and Bandhan Bank Ltd will help us in our journey to go public. With this fundraise, we will focus on going deeper into the Indian market and broaden our product portfolio to grow our business and achieve profitability.”

Razorpay has an employee base of 1,300, it would be using the funds to launch new products for its neo-banking business Razorpay X and lending business Razorpay Capital, and is looking forward to doubling their growth in the forthcoming years. The company is also anticipating to hire 500 people across functions of growth, product, and technology.

Furthermore, commenting on acquisitions, Harshil says, “It is too early to speak on which startups we are looking to acquire since these are still in the discussion phase. But we continue to look at inorganic avenues of growth through opportunistic acquisitions.”

While the company was intending to go public for a long time now. However, it will first focus on achieving overall profitability in the next 2-3 years. Post which it may also focus on newer acquisitions in the business-to-business space and is in discussions with around five startups.

The company's core business would continue to be its online payment gateway, which accounts for 80 percent of its revenue, as it serves five million customers,that includs Airtel, BookMyShow, Facebook India, and Sony. The six-year-old startup provides payments and other financial infrastructure to help businesses manage money flow.