On Thursday, Razorpay India said it had acquired offline payments firm Ezetap, the Sequoia-backed company’s latest bet in the payments industry, in a deal worth $150 million, according to people familiar with the matter.
Razorpay is valued at more than $7 billion and provides payment gateway services to online merchants, said in a statement that the acquisition is the largest to date.
The company said the deal will ramp up efforts to tap the offline market, which still accounts for most electronic payments in India. Ezetap’s products include point-of-sale machines that process over $10 billion in transactions annually in India.
Razorpay co-founder Shashank Kumar said Ezetap would help it grow in this area. “There’s still a large portion of offline and in-person payments that we don’t cover,” he said.
The media reported that Ezetap will continue to operate independently after the acquisition, adding that the deal includes a payment of $150 million to Ezetap. Another $50 million may be linked to its performance next year.
The deal will also help Razorpay cross-sell its services, including loan products, to offline businesses, Kumar said in an interview, adding that Razorpay now serves more than 8 million businesses since its foundation about eight years ago and has processed $80 billion worth of payments.
The acquisition comes when solution providers in India try to get a firm grip on online and offline payments.
India’s Pine Labs, which has focused only on offline payments for years, started processing online transactions last year. According to Reuters, the company aims to achieve a monthly transaction volume of $40 billion to $500 million within two years.