MasterCard, one of the world’s largest payment networks, has invested an undisclosed sum in Indian financial technology start-up Razorpay.
“India is helping to shape the future of e-commerce through strategic collaborations and innovative technology,” said Stephane Wyper, Global Lead, MasterCard Start Path. Mr. Wyper said the work that Razorpay was doing in India complements existing MasterCard solutions that are helping merchants of all sizes and in all markets “accept online payments and grow their business.”
The firm said it was working with MasterCard to hasten the adoption of online and mobile payments among small businesses in India.
Razorpay said it worked with the payment network through its MasterCard Start Path programme — a global effort to support start-ups developing the next generation of commerce and financial technologies. The firm said that it had integrated the MasterCard payment gateway to enable merchants and card issuers to authenticate each other prior to the authorisation of a transaction.
Razorpay, which is backed by investors such as Silicon Valley-based business accelerator Y. Combinator and Ram Shriram, one of the first investors in Google, said it had over 5,000 merchants as customers including American restaurant company Papa John’s, cloud telephony firm Knowlarity and Chai Point.
Harshil Mathur, Chief Executive and Co-founder of Razorpay, said being backed by MasterCard would give it added credibility to its cutting edge technology which is “miles ahead of the competition.” He said over the course of the past few months, Razorpay has been able to attract many of its “competitors’ clients” because of the ease in transacting with its platforms.
