Every good company begins with a problem worth solving. As for Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar, that issue was excruciatingly clear: India’s online payments landscape was a mess, slow, and unfriendly to small businesses. What came next was Razorpay — today one of India’s most precious fintech startups and a poster child for contemporary entrepreneurialism.
This article dives into Razorpay founder Harshil Mathur and Shashank kumar’s backgrounds, early struggles, breakthrough moments, company growth — and why their journey matters to the broader Indian and global fintech ecosystem.
Through their fintech firm Razorpay founder Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar attained exceptional financial success. Their individual net worth was estimated to be around ₹8,643 crore ($1 billion) by the Hurun Global Rich List in 2025, making them one of the youngest self-made billionaires in the nation.
The high valuation of Razorpay is a sign of its quick expansion and the strong investor faith it enjoys in India's flourishing fintech sector as a top digital payments platform.
At a rather young age, both creators have accomplished notable achievements. Reportedly, Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar will be 34 years old in 2025, highlighting the remarkable speed with which they transformed Razorpay from a startup concept to a multi-billion-dollar enterprise. Their age emphasizes a larger trend in India's technological and financial services industries, where young entrepreneurs are at the forefront of innovation.
Both Shashank Kumar and Harshil Mathur have a solid academic foundation in engineering, having attended the well-known Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee. During their IIT days, they developed their problem-solving abilities and technical foundation, which were crucial in establishing Razorpay's technology-first strategy for online payments and fintech services.
Razorpay founder Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar first crossed paths at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee — one of India’s oldest engineering schools. Their mutual passion for technology and problem-solving soon transformed scholastic fascination into partnership.
In college, they collaborated on coding projects and fledgling ventures, setting the stage for future team work. Few knew then that a few years later they’d launch a company that would redefine digital payments in India.
Fresh out of college, they both accepted seemingly secure technology gigs:
But their startup instincts remained unsated. The payments world was stodgy, siloed and infamously hard for developers to incorporate — specifically SMEs. This frustration sowed the seed for Razorpay.
On his LinkedIn, Mathur wrote that they started Razorpay “after discovering the dismal state of online payments in India.”
In other words? They weren’t just solving a problem; they were solving a first-world problem for India’s digital entrepreneurs.
In 2014, Harshil and Shashank officially launched Razorpay in Bengaluru, the startup capital of India.
The mission was simple: create a developer-first payment gateway that supports various payment modes — cards, net banking, UPI, wallets — but without the traditional hassles of complicated integrations. That translated to nice clean APIs, quick setup and clear pricing.
Ironically — they didn’t know anything about banking or payments when they began! But that didn’t stop them. Instead, they learned it the hard way. By doing. And failing. And trying again. That’s classic startup behaviour.
And here’s where the story gets real.
And being two young founders with very little industry experience wasn’t a plus. In fact, banks outright rejected their partnership proposals — almost 100 times according to reports.
Now, try to picture being rejected almost 100 times. Most people would’ve quit right there. But Harshil and Shashank didn’t. They persevered until one bank finally took a chance on them. It wasn’t simple — they needed to put up a substantial security deposit and persuade the bank that fintech wasn’t a temporary trend. Now that's a hustle.
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In 2015, Razorpay got accepted into Y Combinator (YC) — one of the world’s most prestigious startup accelerators. YC doesn’t admit everybody. So this was huge validation.
YC not only gave them early funding, but access to mentorship, Silicon Valley networks, and the confidence to scale beyond local problems into a product that could eventually compete with global players.
Their focus remained simple: make payments seamless, secure, and fast.
Razorpay, however, didn’t just stop at processing payments. Over the years they grew the platform to provide:
This made Razorpay not just a payment gateway, but a full financial stack for online businesses.
According to industry reports, Razorpay now processes more payments than many legacy competitors and serves a majority of India’s unicorn startups.
Today, its infrastructure scales to hundreds of millions of transactions annually — no easy task in a market the size of India.
Let’s get down to brass tacks — the exciting part.
Razorpay’s funding journey shows investor confidence:
That puts Razorpay in the coveted unicorn club — privately held startups valued at over $1 billion.
In 2025, Hurun Global Rich List named Razorpay founder Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar as India’s youngest billionaires at just 34 years old. Each of them has a net worth of approximately ₹8,643 crore (about $1 billion), a sign of both personal and industry growth.
Here’s the real kicker: they did it not by selling out early or flipping quickly, but by building a business that solves a real, recurring problem for millions of merchants and developers.
Razorpay won because it cracked a widespread pain point in the Indian digital economy: payment acceptance was complicated and flaky. If you solve a large problem well, they’ll actually pay for it.
Hundreds of bank rejection letters might have killed the dream. Instead, they became stepping stones.
Throw in a couple of merchants, perfect the platform, make it easy to integrate and then grow. Classic lean thinking.
Razorpay grew as India’s digital ecosystem grew — capitalizing on the ascent of online businesses, e-commerce, and the pandemic-forced move to digital transactions.
Razorpay’s impact is not limited to their balance sheet. Their success has:
In fact, Razorpay has turned into a case study in numerous VC pitch decks and entrepreneurship classrooms too.
If startup founders know one thing, it’s this — entrepreneurship is like making a complicated biryani, minus the recipe. You never know when something’s gonna burn, bubble or explode.
In Razorpay’s early days, every meeting with a bank was like trying to convince your strict grandfather that your rock-band idea was a real career move. Persistence paid off — literally.
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Today, Razorpay continues to:
The company also recently completed a reverse flip, bringing its headquarters back to India. This shift emphasizes its focus on the local market even as it caters to a global audience as well.
Razorpay founder Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar didn’t simply create a company. They constructed infrastructure — the kind businesses depend on to generate revenue day in and day out.
IIT corridors to billionaires, their journey demonstrates what’s possible when passion intersects with persistence and when founders really know the problems they’re attempting to solve.
Their tale is more than just motivating — it’s a pattern for up-and-coming businesspeople who want to create something meaningful.
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Razorpay was co-founded by Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar. Both are key leaders, Harshil as CEO and Shashank as Managing Director.
Harshil Mathur is the co-founder and CEO of Razorpay, a leading Indian fintech company that builds digital payment and financial software.
Harshil Mathur grew up in India and studied at IIT Roorkee. While specific state of origin is not widely published, his professional base is in Bengaluru, India.
As of 2025, Harshil Mathur is 34 years old.
Razorpay’s core payments business is profitable, but the overall company has not yet achieved full profitability due to growth investments. It anticipates being fully profitable in a couple of years.
Harshil Mathur’s net worth is estimated around ₹8,643 crore (about $1 billion) according to the Hurun Global Rich List 2025.
Razorpay is an Indian company headquartered in Bengaluru, India. It performed a ‘reverse flip’ to become India’s global corporate domicile.