Bengaluru-based Razorpay which
was valued at $7.5 billion after a $375 million funding round in December last year, is likely to close the secondary deal in the coming weeks.
The startup’s angel investors, employees and some other investors are offloading shares in what could be one of the company’s largest secondary sale deals since it was founded. In a secondary share sale, new investors buy shares from existing investors but the money doesn’t go to the company.
Razorpay founders may also offload a small part of their holding in the company but that hasn’t been finalised yet, sources added.
As is the case typically with secondary transactions, the deal may be executed at a slightly lower valuation than Razorpay’s last-round valuation. “Some of the incoming investors wanted to participate in the December round but could not be accommodated, now this is happening via secondaries,” one of the people briefed on the matter said.
Razorpay’s cofounder and CEO Harshil Mathur declined to comment while an email sent to Lightspeed Venture Partners did not elicit a response.
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“Some of the angels have already divested their holdings in the company, as part of the secondary deal. Besides Lightspeed, there may be one or two more new investors coming in,” another person said.
Sources said the final size of the transaction will depend on how much Razorpay employees are willing to divest. The secondary sale could lead to a significant windfall for existing investors as Razorpay’s valuation jumped two-and-a-half times in eight months when i
t closed its previous funding round in December.
Founded by Mathur and Shashank Kumar in 2014, Razorpay is one of the highest-valued Indian fintech startups in India. It has raised over $740 million from investors such as GIC, Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital and others.
Razorpay is also making acquisitions in India and abroad, the
most recent one being that of IZealiant Technologies in March. In February,
it acquired Malaysian fintech firm Curlec.
Razorpay clocked an annual total payment volume (TPV) of $60 billion in calendar year 2021 and is aiming to hit $90 billion by the end of 2022.
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