[Funding alert] Fintech unicorn Razorpay raises $160M at $3B valuation

Fintech major Razorpay said it has raised $160 million at a valuation of $3 billion in Series E funding. The round was led by existing investors GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, and Sequoia India, along with participation from Ribbit Capital and Matrix Partners.

The Bengaluru-based company's latest funding comes in less than six months after it attained the unicorn status.

The company said it plans to infuse the freshly raised capital to scale up its Business Banking suite, invest in new acquisitions, and launch in international markets such as South-East Asian countries.

The fintech unicorn is already hiring more than 600 employees to fuel its growth plans.  

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With the latest fundraise, the company has now raised a total of $366.5 million in funding since 2014.

Commenting on the funding, Harshil Mathur, CEO and Co-founder of Razorpay, said, “We at Razorpay want to be the one-stop financial platform that a business needs to simplify and manage their end-to-end money movement. We have made some strides towards that journey, our recent initiatives in the Banking and Lending space through RazorpayX and Capital have helped businesses solve some very unique challenges around managing money, empowering businesses to grow up to 10X in an economically challenging year."

"There’s more work to be done. We believe there’s a dire need to develop new banking technologies that meet the rising demand. And so we plan to use these funds to further expand our banking and lending product suite so that we not only provide a better experience to businesses and their customers, but significantly contribute to the growth of our partner businesses.”

He added the team has been geared to make an impactful contribution to the industry and aid adoption in underserved markets. The company, he said, will be focussed on investing in building new-age business banking solutions and unlocking growth for SMBs.

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The company stated that its neo-banking platform, RazorpayX, is changing the business of banking and is powering over 15,000 Indian businesses and their owners to manage their money. The neobank saw 400 percent growth in transaction volume in the last 12 months of COVID.

The company also stated that a portion of the funds raised will be invested in RazorpayX to roll out new tailored products built on the latest technology stack.

These products will be designed to enhance convenience, security, manage expenses better, and help minimise a company’s financial risk in an increasingly uncertain digital environment.

It added that the company has been disbursing credit of upwards of Rs 700 crore per month, helping entrepreneurs get access to working capital, and now plans to scale this up to Rs 1,000 crore per month by the end of 2021. 

The team is also looking to foray into South-East Asian countries. The fintech unicorn stated that the payment problem is more dominant in developing countries than developed countries.

It added, "Today, geographies like South East Asian (SEA) countries face similar payment issues like India and Razorpay will look to leverage its leadership in building intelligent payment products and learnings to ripe markets like South-east Asian countries. The company has been working on market research, understanding the payment needs of SEA businesses, and plans to hire on-ground teams in building a payment acceptance layer and work with multiple stakeholders on product customisation."

Razorpay is also looking at strengthening its business banking offerings by looking out for B2B financial SaaS startups opening up in the SME credit, accounting, taxation, accounts receivable, and expense management segment. It said it will be acquiring B2B SaaS companies that can help scale up operations.

The company also said that in the last six months, Razorpay has witnessed a 40-45 percent growth, month-on-month. The company plans to achieve $50 billion TPV (Total Payment Volume) by the end of 2021 (current TPV: $40 billion) and further solidify its position as one of the largest full-stack fintech companies in the country.

Commenting on the company’s acquisition strategy, Arpit Chug, Chief Financial Officer, Razorpay, said, “Being a technology-first company, we’re always evaluating products and technologies that automate long and arduous money movement, accounting, and other banking processes, thereby allowing businesses to focus more on growing their business. In the next 12 months, Razorpay will look to introduce more such products through strategic acquisitions, which fit into our vision of making financial infrastructure easy and available to businesses across the country.”

Razorpay currently powers payments for over five million businesses, including the likes of Facebook, Airtel, BookMyShow, Ola, Zomato, Swiggy, CRED, and ICICI Prudential, among others, and is all set to reach 10 million businesses by 2021.