Razorpay Co-founder Shashank Kumar takes over as MD; ex-AWS executive Murali B is new CTO

Shashank Kumar, Co-founder at Razorpay, on Thursday moved on from his role as the company's Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and assumed charge as the Managing Director (MD). 

The fintech unicorn appointed former executive at Amazon Web Service (AWS) Murali Brahmadesam as its new Head of Engineering and CTO, to drive overall engineering strategy and development at Razorpay. 

The change in senior leadership comes at a time when the startup is “making strides into global markets”, and is looking to strengthen its tech capabilities to build world-class technology products. 

Holding two decades of experience, Murali has spent a major share of his career at Amazon and Microsoft, working in India as well as the US where he has held several technology and leadership roles.

“Engineering has been the bedrock of growth for Razorpay since its inception. With an 800-member engineering team, we are constantly working towards solving some of the toughest challenges that businesses face today, with innovation at the core,” the co-founder said. 

“Murali brings in-depth knowledge of managing technology functions at scale. I am excited to have him on board at a time when Razorpay is making strides into global markets and further deepening its expertise with all things business payments and business banking,” he added. 

Shashank will continue to work towards Razorpay’s long-term vision for Engineering, Product, as well as the Go-To-Market (GTM) functions for the RazorpayX and Razorpay Capital businesses.

“Razorpay has been at the forefront of inventing breakthrough products in business payment and banking that are being relied upon by millions of diverse businesses. I look forward to working with the team and joining Razorpay’s mission to build the central nervous system for fintech in India,” said new CTO Murali. 

Founded in 2014 by IIT Roorkee alumni Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar, Razorpay provides technology payment solutions to over 8 million businesses. 

In December 2021, it became India’s most valued fintech after it raised $375 million at a valuation of $7.5 billion. Investors, including Lone Pine Capital, Alkeon Capital, TCV, GIC, Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital India, Ribbit Capital, Matrix Partners, Salesforce Ventures, Y Combinator and MasterCard, have invested about $741.5 million in the company to date.

Recently, the company picked up a majority stake in Malaysian fintech firm Curlec. With the acquisition, Razorpay is looking to expand its core payments services to Southeast Asian customers and launch recurring payments in new geographies. It is also expected to enable cross-border payments for local Southeast Asian businesses with the Curlec acquisition.

With this, Razorpay joined rival Pine Labs, which has expanded to Southeast Asia.

Apart from the international deals, the startup acquired digital payments startup IZealiant Technologies for an undisclosed sum. Prior to this, it had announced the acquisition of AI-based risk tech firm TERA Finlabs; payroll and HR management solution Opfin; and fraud analytics startup Thirdwatch.