One of India's leading full-stack financial services companies, Razorpay has announced its foray into the offline payments world with the acquisition of Ezetap, a universal payments platform. The deal size is between $150 to $200 million.

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Founded in 2011, Ezetap is India's leading offline POS company that was founded with the aim to simplify the in-person offline payments experience. With this acquisition, Razorpay will be one of the few companies across the world with a significant online and offline presence in payments. This marks Razorpay’s sixth and biggest acquisition thus far.

While digital penetration is growing across India, offline payments remain a vital part of the ecosystem. And Ezetap claims it has transformed the way offline payments are done. The company provides software for financial technologies, including Point Of Sales (POS) solutions, billing, loyalty solutions among others, enabling businesses to accept payments in-store and on-delivery.

The company currently serves over 500,000+ touchpoints, including the likes of Amazon and BigBasket, works closely with India’s largest banks including SBI, HDFC, ICICI and Axis Bank, among others, and processes over $10 billion in annual transactions on its platform.

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Over the last two years, businesses have adopted a hybrid approach to reach their customers after the pandemic. Today, it is not enough to offer both online and offline payments but to marry the two seamlessly for a truly omnichannel experience. This partnership with Ezetap will empower Razorpay to become India’s largest omnichannel payments solution for all businesses.

A "Hybrid"or "Omnichannel" payment experience has a huge potential to redefine customer experiences and as a result help businesses retain their customers. It is therefore pertinent for those businesses seeking sustainable growth to make the ‘omnichannel payment experience’ a default option for their customers.

Commenting on the announcement of a new journey, Harshil Mathur, CEO and co-founder of Razorpay said, "We are thrilled about this new move and excited to welcome Ezetap to the Razorpay family as we take our first step together in transforming India’s omnichannel payments experience. There is a huge opportunity in redefining omnichannel payments that this acquisition offers."

"We believe that the businesses of tomorrow will not distinguish between physical and digital channels and will expect a unified payment experience through a single integrated platform, both in the offline and online world. And we are excited that the upcoming new innovations through this acquisition will deliver just that - a seamless, hassle-free, secure omnichannel payment experience, bringing businesses much closer to their customers.”

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He added, "With Ezetap on board, we believe we are well-poised to create a similar disruption as done in online payments and simplify in-person payments with the same passion and effort we have devoted to online payments. We are excited that with this acquisition, we will be one of the frontrunners in this change of omnichannel payment revolution."

Razorpay believes that the acquisition of Ezetap will take the company closer to offline businesses, understand their needs - regardless of size, nature, or location – and help businesses enjoy access to simple yet powerful payment and banking solutions that can help them achieve limitless growth.

CEO of Ezetap, Byas Nambisan said, "It's an exciting time at Ezetap. Over the last eleven years, we have strived to build a robust payment ecosystem for thousands of offline businesses so that they can accept any mode of payment from their customers, across every touch point.

Today we have reached greater heights only because of the trust of our customers, investors, partners and our phenomenal team. We thank you for believing in our vision, we couldn't have done it without you!"

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He added, "And now we are truly excited about our next adventure - our next phase of growth as a part of the Razorpay Family. We share Razorpay’s vision of simplifying payments and banking for Indian businesses, being available wherever their customers are, and being a one-stop payment and banking platform across channels. And this step takes us at Ezetap closer to achieving that dream.

We join Razorpay’s suite of products to collectively offer businesses the best-in-class omni-channel payments experience and are excited at the limitless possibilities that together both the companies are looking to explore in the omnichannel payment world."

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Razorpay believes that Ezetap’s tech stack will now further the company’s mission towards creating a single unified platform that powers transactions across both, brick and mortar and online storefronts. The entire Ezetap Team of around 300 employees will be joining the Razorpay family working as an independent business unit within Razorpay.

Prior to this, Razorpay acquired IZealiant Technologies, a leading Fintech startup that provides payments technology solutions for banks in March 2022 and before that the company acquired Malaysia-based Curlec, a leading recurring revenue platform in February 2022, announcing its expansion into South-East Asia.

The other previous acquisitions include 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.

Founded in 2014, Razorpay provides technology payment solutions to over 8 million businesses. With $80 billion TPV as of April 2022, Razorpay is now eyeing a 10-12 million merchant base by next year. 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 neo banking arm, RazorpayX.

Marquee investors such as Lone Pine Capital, Alkeon Capital, TCV, GIC, Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital India, Ribbit Capital, Matrix Partners, Salesforce Ventures, Y Combinator and MasterCard have invested a total of $741.5 million through Series A, B, C, D, E and F funding. A few angel investors have also invested in Razorpay’s mission to simplify payments and banking and redefine how finance works in India.​

First Published:Aug 18, 2022 3:55 PM IST