Razorpay valuation triples in 6 months

BENGALURU: Business payments and financial services startup Razorpay has raised $160 million as part of its Series E round co-led by existing investors, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC and Sequoia India, at a valuation of $3 billion. Last October, the firm had secured $100 million in a round led by GIC and Sequoia India at a valuation of a little over $1 billion.

Existing investors Ribbit Capital and Matrix Partners also participated in the current funding round. So far, the company has raised $366.5 million since its launch in 2014. The valuation makes Razorpay the third-most valuable fintech firm in the Indian startup ecosystem.

Bengaluru-based PhonePe was valued at $5.5 billion during a funding round in December 2020, while One97 Communications Ltd, which owns Paytm, is valued at $16 billion.

With this fresh infusion, Razorpay will expand its footprint in South-east Asia, including the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia, to offer its core payment gateway service in these markets by 2021-end.

Besides, Razorpay is also looking at acquiring software-as-aservice (SaaS) platforms and add capabilities such as treasury management, compliance-related remittances, business reconciliations and real-time reporting to expand its suite of products for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The company will use the fresh capital to boost its neo-banking business Razorpay X and its lending platform Razorpay Capital, which contribute nearly 30% of its revenue. Both services were launched nearly two-and-a-half years ago.

“In the last year alone, we have on-boarded close to 700,000 merchants on our platform, and seen strong growth across our Razorpay X and Capital verticals. But there’s more work to be done; we believe there’s a dire need to develop new banking technologies that meet the rising demand.