Did you know that, before founding India’s 32nd unicorn, Razorpay, co-founders Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar were initially rejected by 100+ banks?

Touted as the most valuable Indian fintech company today at a valuation of $7.5 billion, Razorpay was co-founded by Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar in 2014.

The duo met in college while they were at IIT Roorkee, studying BTech. Harshil completed his BTech in Technology, and Shashank completed his BTech in Computer Science in 2014.

Shortly after founding Razorpay, in 2015, the two co-founders joined Y-Combinator, an American technology startup accelerator program.

The idea for Razorpay emerged when Harshil and Shashank were working on a crowdfunding platform. During this, they discovered that online payments were a hassle for small businesses and e-commerce companies.

So, with the intent of resolving the issue, they decided to found Razorpay and capitalize on the then-untapped opportunity that lay within the payment gateway market.

Razorpay’s business model was simple. They would offer online payment services in turn for a 2-3% transaction fee. Owing to this ease and security of payments, today, Razorpay has become one of the leading internet-based financial solution providers.

Initially, the two had to provide an explanation for every payment they made for essential items from their college seed fund. Today, the startup has managed to raise $815.7 million in funding.

This includes investors such as Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global, Y Combinator, Matrix Partners, Singapore's GIC, and Sequoia India, among others.

It was in 2020 when a $100 million funding by Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC and Sequoia India led Razorpay to become India’s 32nd unicorn.