 "Razorpay")
Fintech player Razorpay, which will complete a decade of growth in the domestic market next year, says the next decade will be about international expansion.
The company, which entered Malaysia last year, is eyeing markets such as Indonesia, Vietnam, and The Philippines for expansion into South East Asia.
“India is still a big market for us, but I think we can replicate the success story in these markets too. One of the reasons for this is that many of the markets in South East Asia are going through the same journey in real-time payment transfer that India has seen 5-7 years back,” said Harshil Mathur, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO), Razorpay, on the sidelines of the Global Fintech Fest.
He believes that Indian fintechs are in a unique position and can lead the fintech disruption globally.
“Take, for instance, the internet. The internet build-up happened out of the US, and hence, companies, which did well, could easily replicate that success on the global platform. We have the same opportunity as the fintech revolution is happening in India,” he added.
Mathur also said that with a successful launch in Malaysia, the window to roll out its services in other markets comes down.
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“We took eight months to roll out in Malaysia, but with that experience the time has come down to 4-5 months now,” added Mathur.
Razorpay, which launched in 2014, has over 5 million merchants online and over 650,000 touch points offline. It processes $120 billion in annual payments through its platform, and began its journey by focusing on new-age internet tech firms. On the payments side, the firms are seeing growth of 40-50 per cent.
Mathur said that of the over 100 unicorns that the Indian startup ecosystem has, almost 73-74 are Razorpay users.
With a strong foothold, the company now sees a huge opportunity beyond B2B payments.
“Business-to-government payments, or person-to-government payments is a huge opportunity. If you go beyond that we are doing a lot in the neo-bank and credit segment. Our aim is to be the single provider for money movement for businesses,” he added.
Mathur said profitability of the firm and the IPO timing are linked.
“The IPO will take at least two to three years. And ideally, we will be at break-even at least a year before that,” he added.
When asked if the funding winter has impacted it and its IPO plans, Mathur said no.
“We are well funded. Last year, we raised funds through a secondary route. There was no need to raise money, but we didn’t want to let go of any inorganic opportunity. Our burn rate is extremely low, and we saw break-even in the payments segment,” added Mathur.
Razorpay is backed by investors such as Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India & SEA), Tiger Global and GIC, among others.
The company is valued at $7.5 billion after it raised $375 million in Series F in 2021.
