Razorpay

Razorpay builds payment infrastructure for businesses in India. Its payment gateway and checkout let merchants accept cards, net banking, UPI and wallets through developer-friendly APIs, and it has added payment links, subscriptions, point-of-sale, payroll, a RazorpayX business banking product with current accounts and corporate cards offered through partner banks, and working capital lending through Razorpay Capital. Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar, who met at IIT Roorkee, co-founded the company, and Kumar had worked at Microsoft. TechCrunch dates the founding to 2014, and the founders went through Y Combinator in 2015. The company is headquartered in Bengaluru.

Razorpay's financing began with Y Combinator and angels including Mastercard and founders of Snapdeal, InMobi and Freecharge. In January 2018 Tiger Global led a $20 million round with the Y Combinator Continuity Fund and Matrix Partners, bringing total funding to $31.5 million. In October 2020 GIC and Sequoia India led a $100 million Series D, with Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global, Y Combinator and Matrix participating, at a valuation of a little over $1 billion and total funding of $206.5 million. Sequoia Capital India and GIC led a $160 million Series E in April 2021 at a $3 billion valuation, with Ribbit and Tiger Global joining. Salesforce Ventures made a strategic investment in September 2021. In December 2021 Lone Pine Capital, Alkeon Capital and TCV led a $375 million Series F at a $7.5 billion valuation, with Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital India, GIC and Y Combinator participating, taking total funding above $740 million. Razorpay also lists Lightspeed among its backers.

Razorpay remains privately held. At the Series F it reported annualized total payment volume of $60 billion, up from $5 billion in 2019, and more than 8 million businesses as customers, including Facebook, Swiggy, Cred and Indian Oil. TechCrunch reported that 34 of the 42 Indian startups that became unicorns in 2021 used Razorpay. Chief executive Harshil Mathur said at the time that the company would not explore public markets for at least two and a half years while preparing to be IPO-ready. No later priced round or listing was confirmed in the sources reviewed.

Razorpay shows how quickly a payments company can compound in a market adopting digital payments. Y Combinator and Matrix Partners entered when total funding was under $32 million, and the company's valuation rose roughly sevenfold between October 2020 and December 2021 as payment volume grew. Crossover funds such as Lone Pine, Alkeon and TCV priced the 2021 round, and holders from that vintage have no marked liquidity event yet, roughly five years later.