Indian fintech unicorn Razorpay acquires Malaysia’s Curlec

The Indian fintech industry continues to boom as it becomes the third largest fintech ecosystem in the world. In fact, there are more than 6000 fintech companies in India with a large chunk of them into investment tech and payments.

According to a report by BLinC Investment Management, a Mumbai-based VC firm, the overall market size for Indian fintech reached US$ 31 billion in 2021. With huge opportunities and competition in the industry, some Indian fintech companies have aimed for international expansions and global acquisitions.

One of the biggest fintech deals in India last year was when Pine Labs acquired Malaysian fintech platform Fave for US$ 45 million. The acquisition saw Fave’s smart payment app launch in India across all Pine Labs merchant networks.

Now, Razorpay, India’s leading payments and banking platform for businesses, has announced its first international expansion into South-East Asia with the acquisition of a majority stake in Curlec, a leading Malaysian fintech firm, for an undisclosed amount. A Kuala Lumpur-based company, Curlec builds solutions for recurring payments for modern businesses of all sizes. This marks Razorpay’s fourth acquisition overall and its first in international waters, taking one step closer to becoming a fintech leader in emerging markets.

We are growing!
We are extremely happy to announce our first international acquisition 🚀@curlec_pay is now a part of the Razorpay family⚡@harshilmathur @shashank_kr @stevekucia @zacliew

Read more here: https://t.co/aRgbh7q37a pic.twitter.com/NqzQqSUqCp

— Razorpay (@Razorpay) February 8, 2022

With Malaysian shoppers more open to cross-border shopping, especially with 40% of online transactions happening cross-border, Razorpay believes a broader range of payment services is required. The company is confident that an acquisition such as this will further unveil new channels for global business expansion for online businesses based in India and Malaysia.

Razorpay also believes Curlec’s knowledge and expertise on Malaysia’s payment ecosystem and demography will be the ideal partners for the company to expand into Malaysia. This acquisition will help both companies build and scale seamless payment solutions for Malaysia’s businesses and enable global payments for its Indian businesses.

Through this acquisition, Razorpay aims to further solidify its mission of being a one-stop destination for any and every payment and banking need of businesses, not just for Indian businesses but even for businesses in Malaysia, empowering them to worry less, accomplish more and witness uncontrolled growth.

For Harshil Mathur, CEO and Co-Founder, Razorpay, the vast experience in a heterogeneous market like India over the last seven years, the expansion to the Southeast Asia payments market is timed exactly to coincide with the company’s growing dominance in all things payments.

“Curlec has a similar culture like Razorpay and the same product and tech-first philosophy of building products and delighting customers. And so, we are eagerly waiting to work with Curlec’s incredible talent and strength.

With a measured approach, we look forward to learning the nuances of Malaysia, their business and customer needs, and slowly adapt and build products tailored to the SEA geography. Together, we are confident that we will be optimally positioned to take on the unique challenges that both India and Malaysian markets put forth, and look forward to reimagining and transforming the payments ecosystem in South-East Asia,” added Mathur.

Zac Liew, Co-Founder & CEO of Curlec said, “We’ve long admired what they’ve built in India from afar and are fully aligned with a common vision of building payment and banking solutions from top to bottom, for any business. We look forward to the next phase of our journey and scaling together across Malaysia and Southeast Asia.”

Prior to this, Razorpay acquired TERA Finlabs, (AI-based risk tech SaaS Platform) in 2021, Opfin (Payroll & HR management solution) in 2019, and Thirdwatch (Fraud Analytics AI-platform) in 2018.

Razorpay was also recently crowned India’s Most Valued Private Fintech company. It serves over 8 million businesses including the likes of Facebook, Ola, Zomato, Swiggy, Cred, and achieved US$ 60 billion Total Payment Volume (TPV) as of early December 2021. The Fintech Unicorn is at the forefront of India’s digital financial revolution building the central nervous system for Digital India, with clear dominance in digital payments and its fast-growing business neobanking arm, RazorpayX.

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