Razorpay acquires Malaysian fintech Curlec at $20 mn

The acquisition will mark the beginning of Razorpay's global expansion plans. After Malaysia, the startup is eyeing other Southeast Asian markets including Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Payments and digital banking platform Razorpay has acquired Kuala Lumpur-based fintech Curlec in its first international purchase, kicking off its global expansion plans just over a month after bagging its largest-ever funding of $375 million.

Razorpay co-founder and CEO Harshil Mathur said in an address to the media that the company has acquired a majority stake in Curlec at a valuation of $20 million and the balance stake acquisition will be completed in the next year and a half.

Curlec was founded in 2017 by Zac Liew and Steve Kucia and like Razorpay is a business-to-business payment solution provider. The company offers recurring and subscription-based payment collection for businesses, besides billing, payouts and other payments solutions.

In India, Razorpay competes with payment gateways like PayU, Billdesk, etc, and B2B neobanking platforms like Open. The Indian fintech landscape too is seeing immense growth with large investments and foreign players like US's Stripe and UK's Revolut entering the country in the past few years.