Salesforce Ventures invests in digital payments firm Razorpay

Founded in 2014 by Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar, Razorpay has expanded from being a payment gateway to launching its neo banking platform and an SME lending arm Razorpay Capital. (Representative image)

Razorpay, the digital payments, and business banking platform on September 20 said it has received funding from Salesforce Ventures, the global investment arm of cloud-based software giant Salesforce.

It did not disclose the quantum of investment. Bengaluru-based Razorpay, which was valued at over $3 billion in its last round of funding, said the investment will strengthen its presence in the business banking space.

Harshil Mathur, CEO, and Co-Founder, Razorpay said, “Razorpay wants to make further strides on the idea of investing in India’s digital future and building an intelligent payment and banking infrastructure for the new world. We are delighted to associate with Salesforce Ventures and Salesforce more broadly in India.”

“I am certain that this investment, along with support from our existing investors will help build an ecosystem for hassle-free, easy-to-integrate payments and banking experience. We also hope to expand, build new products and deliver this experience to businesses in South East Asian countries too,” Mathur added.

The company further said being a leading investor in enterprise software, Salesforce Ventures has the insight and expertise to advise Razorpay on the next stage of its growth journey.

The company added that this fund infusion will accelerate its growth in modernising the financial infrastructure for small businesses and large enterprises by providing automated payment and business banking solutions.

Salesforce India’s Chairperson and CEO Arundhati Bhattacharya, who previously served as the Chairperson to India’s largest bank State Bank of India (SBI) said, “The rapid growth in digital payments over the last year has opened doors for technology innovation and Razorpay has been emerging as the company of choice for a lot of e-commerce businesses. We are excited to support Razorpay in their journey to revolutionise digital finance not only in India but globally as well.”

Razorpay had announced its Series E fundraise of $160 million in April this year, which tripled the company’s valuation to $3 billion in less than six months since it became a unicorn (a startup valued at $1 billion). The round was co-led by its existing investors GIC and Sequoia India, and also saw participation from Ribbit Capital, Matrix Partners, and Tiger Global.

In an interview with Moneycontrol in April post the fundraise, Mathur had said that the money will be used to take its digital payments offering to South East Asia, make acquisitions, and build out its neo-banking platform, with plans to hire over 600 employees.

Founded in 2014 by Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar, Razorpay has expanded from being a payment gateway to launching its neo banking platform RazorpayX and an SME lending arm Razorpay Capital.

Razorpay has witnessed a 40-45 percent month-on-month growth for the last six months, month-on-month, and has achieved Total Payment Volumes (TPV) of $50 billion. Razorpay’s business-banking platform, RazorpayX has witnessed over 400 percent growth in transaction volume post the pandemic and is serving over 15,000 businesses.

The payment gateway is set to reach 200 million customers by the end of 2021 from 140 million currently and has merchants including Facebook, CRED, Ola, Amazon, Tata Technologies, Zomato, Amul, Swiggy, ICICI Prudential among others on its platform.