By Mr. Abhay Ray 
Introduction to Razorpay
Razorpay is a Bengaluru-based fintech unicorn that provides online payment services to merchants. The company was founded by Harshil Mathur (CEO) and Shashank Kumar (Managing Director and former CTO) in 2014. Razorpay supports a variety of payment methods, including debit cards, credit cards, cardless EMIs, UPI, bank transfers, e-wallets, and e-mandates, offering businesses flexible options to enhance customer experience.Razorpay’s mission and vision are to make digital payments faster, secure, and convenient for businesses and consumers in India and around the world.Razorpay aims to revolutionize money management for online businesses by providing clean, developer-friendly APIs and hassle-free integration.
About the Announcement
Fintech major Razorpay is awarding employee stock option plans (ESOPs) worth ₹ 1 lakh to all its current employees as part of its 10 years celebration. An ESOP refers to a share of the company offered to employees that can be encashed after a specific period at a set price. However, it is uncommon for companies to undertake such initiatives on a large scale, particularly by uniformly allocating Esops to all employees across all levels. For many employees, this marks their first-ever ESOP allocation. The announcement comes amid with the company’s 10th anniversary in which the firm has decided to reward its 3,000 plus employees—referred to internally as ‘Razors’—for their role in its decade-long growth journeyIt exemplifies the company’s ten-year growth trajectory and its attitude of sharing its triumphs with people who helped build it.
Significance of the Announcement
At present, the Bengaluru-based company has an employee base of over 3,000. This translates into a total ESOP value of over ₹ 30 crore. This action is in line with Razorpay’s long-standing values of workforce appreciation and value generation.
“The ESOP initiative is our way of ensuring every teammate shares in the success as we continue to innovate, simplify money movement, and create even greater value for businesses in India and beyond,” said Harshil Mathur, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO), Razorpay.
“It is the culture of long-term thinking and value creation that drives us to recognise and reward our team’s hard work through initiatives like granting ESOPs to all employees. The next chapter promises even more, and I look forward to building it together with our Razors,” said Shashank Kumar, co-founder and managing director, Razorpay.
Razorpay’s ESOP Legacy
ESOPs have long been a valuable means of wealth creation in the start-up ecosystem. Razorpay said it believes that employees are the driving force behind its growth, and ESOP allocations show appreciation for their contributions. Razorpay has historically leveraged ESOPs to incentivize and reward employees. The company’s first ESOP buyback in 2018 allowed 140 employees to liquidate their vested shares, and a larger $75-million buyback in 2022 benefited 650 current and former employees.
Company Achievements and Growth
Founded in 2014, by IIT Roorkee alumni Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar. Razorpay has grown from a single-product payment gateway to a multi-product platform with an annualized total payment volume (TPV) of $180 billion. The company powers payments for 80 of India’s 100 unicorns and serves over 300 million end consumers. Its portfolio includes over 40 products addressing payments, banking, and financial technology needs. In 2024,its founders Mathur and Kumar were named the youngest Indian billionaires on the Hurun Rich List, with an estimated net worth of ₹8,700 crores, or approximately USD 1.03 billion.
Razorpay reported a 24 percent growth in revenue at ₹ 2,068 crore in FY24. Its total income had crossed ₹ 2,501 crore last fiscal, the company said in a statement.The fintech firm, valued at $7 billion, also reported a 4.7-times growth in net profit, which stood at Rs 35 crore in FY24. The good growth in FY24 came even as the company was asked by the banking regulator to stop onboarding new customers, until the final approval for the payment aggregator licence, which came during the second half of FY24.Razorpay had reported a total income of ₹ 2,293 crore in FY23 and a net profit of ₹ 7 crore during the year. Its revenue stood at ₹ 1,665 crore in FY23.
Conclusion
The extensive ESOP allocation made by Razorpay is in line with an increasing trend among Indian businesses that use stock options as a means of generating wealth and retaining employees. Significant ESOP buybacks have been carried out by a number of startups in recent years, benefiting thousands of workers in many industries. The payments fintech is currently in the process of reverse flipping from the United States (US) to India. The firm expects to complete the domicile shift sometime in 2025, aiming for IPO in 2026. The company, valued at $7.5 billion, seeks to list where it’s recognized and projects a 50%+ growth rate over the next few years.
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