Indian payments and banking platform, Razorpay has acquired a majority stake in a Malaysia-based fintech firm, Curlec for an undisclosed amount.
CEO and co-founder of Curlec, Zac Liew said he is looking forward to growing and scaling with Razorpay across Malaysia and Southeast Asia.
History of Curlec
- Founded by Zac Liew and Steve Kucia in 2018
- Focused on solutions for SMEs to collect recurring payments and gain control of their cash flow
- Had many obstacles in funding and getting early customers initially
- Was awarded Malaysia’s Best FinTech Startup at the Southeast Asian Global Startup Awards 2019
- Previous investors include Captii Ventures and 500 Startups
- Reputable customer base such as AXA AFFIN Life Insurance, Funding Societies and RentGuard
- Annual revenue has been growing at nearly 5x since 2018
Southeast Asia, the Region for Razorpay's Expansion
- Southeast Asia is a digital payment powerhouse, with its recent massive financial growth, mainly driven by changing consumer habits and retail trends.
- During 2021, Malaysia's e-commerce transaction is on the rise with a market size of US$21 billion and predicted to hit US$35 billion by 2025.
- Emergence of new mobile payment methods and various digital payment solutions continue to drive e-commerce growth.
- Malaysians are more open to cross-border shopping; 40% of its e-commerce transactions happening cross-border.
- Razorpay's CEO and co-founder Harshil Mathur believes the market could use a broader range of payment services with new e-commerce consumers.
"Razorpay's expansion into the Southeast Asia payments market is timed perfectly with the company’s growing dominance in all things payments," Harshil said.
Razorpay currently serves over 8 million businesses in India.
Some of the Razorpay's leading clients include Oyo, Cred, Facebook, Flipkart, Zomato and Swiggy, as well as the multinational telecommunications giant, Airtel.
The India-based fintech firm has achieved US$60 billion in total payment volume through its platform in 2021 and plans to achieve US$90 billion in 2022.
