Seldom do you get to hear a startup from Rajasthan, receiving a decent seed round, and that too from Y Combinator. Well, Jaipur-based RazorPay, which has developed an out-of-the-box online payment system for India, just secured a $120K seed-backing from Y-Combinator.
Not just thus, it has also become the first India startup this year, to receive backing from Y Combinator. The startup has developed a new, developer-friendly online payment system primarily focused towards startups coming up in India’s glitzy e-commerce sector.
So how does RazorPay differentiates itself from other similar online payment options like Stripe-a YC alumni itself ?
In principle, RazorPay isn’t different from what Stripe or other similar solutions offer. It helps developers embed online payment options through RazorPay API, and allows consumers to use net-banking, debit cards or credit cards for paying the merchant. However, what sets RazorPay apart, is its extremely simple and fluid user interface, and its focus towards Indian audience. Since the platform has been developed by an Indian group, it has been designed keeping in mind, the exact thought process which Indians go through while doing online purchases.
What makes RazorPay even more different is its exceptionally simple set up process. While most payment gateways ask for numerous records to set up your account, RazorPay allows you to start receiving payments almost instantaneously in your existing bank account, without the need for opening a new one.
Remember those irritating pop-ups which re-direct us to the merchant’s online payment solutions partner ?That may soon be a thing of the past.
RazorPay’s platform provides beautiful cross-platform payment forms, easily embeddable in vendor’s website. This saves you from those irritating re-directs, which, owing to India’s massively poor internet access, get stuck in between quite often, further annoying the customer. With RazorPay’s forms, you can complete the entire payment process, including checkout, on one single page.
Using its self-developed online payment platform, RazorPay has successfully built an online-fee payment system for toddlers, making fee-payment for parents, a breeze. Once a school or an institution signs up, its students can pay their fees online, via RazorOay, in e-commerce fashion. Its system automatically generates an invoice for you, authorised by the institution.
RazorPay claims to have an integration process, which sets up in as much as 10 minutes, thus reducing developer’s strain to bare minimum. Its current notable clients include Zostel,
The company is currently offering two pricing plans to use its services. One of them is completely free (you don;t get that anywhere) for startups, with a 2.5% charge per transaction. The other one, meant for businesses, starts at as low as INR 5,000 with a 2% commission per transaction.
RazorPay is currently incubated at Start-Up Oasis in Jaipur, an incubation center supported by the Rajasthan Government.
We’ll soon be featuring an exclusive interview with RazorPay founders. Stay Tuned.
