Earlier this week, digital payments company Razorpay picked up a majority stake in consumer payments platform POP for $30 million.

This was one of the several strategic investments or acquisitions made by the fintech unicorn since 2019 to either strengthen its product offerings or enter new lines of business within the payments framework and even storm into new geographies.

The Head and Tale looks back at those deals struck by Razorpay as the company readies itself for an initial public offering (IPO) in the coming years.

Razorpay, which was launched in 2013 by IIT Roorkee alumni Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar, had made its first acquisition in August 2019 with the purchase of AI-powered startup Thirdwatch that specializes in real-time fraud prevention using machine learning. In hindsight, the investment in Thirdwatch is evidence of its proactiveness in ramping up its AI muscle. Interestingly, in a recent BCG report, Razorpay was singled out as one of the startups to have strategically embedded AI across its ecosystem.

Razorpay's acquisition of Thirdwatch had come soon after the fintech startup had raised $75 million in its Series C funding round led by Ribbit Capital and Peak XV Partners. It had previously raised capital from Tiger Global, Matrix Partners, Y Combinator as well as angel investors including Snapdeal founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal and InMobi founders Abhay Singhal, Amit Gupta and Naveen Tewari.

Later in 2019, Razorpay acquired cloud-based payroll management startup Opfin that allowed the fintech company to roll out a new HR automation product.

The following year Razorpay stormed into the famed unicorn club of startups that boast of a valuation of at least $1 billion with the Series D funding round of $100 million co-led by Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, who joined as new investor, and Peak XV Partners. No acquisitions were announced by Razorpay that year.

The fintech startup made a string of acquisitions, however, in the following two years.

Razorpay made its third acquisition with the purchase of risk tech software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform Tera Finlabs in July 2021. Then early in February 2022, Razorpay picked a majority stake in Malaysia-based fintech company Curlec, marking its first international acquisition. In less than two months following the deal with Curlec, Razorpay acquired Pune-based technology startup IZealiant to improve its banking solutions.

Later in 2022, Razorpay struck its biggest acquisition when it bought Ezetap that marked its entry into the offline payments space. While the deal value was not disclosed, media reports have pegged it at $150-200 million. In an interview with Forbes last year, Vishnu Acharya, head of strategy and M&A/investments, said that Razorpay has closed acquisition deals worth $200 million.

Following the Ezetap acquisition, Razorpay bought payments-linked loyalty and engagement solutions provider PoshVine in September that year.

Razorpay went quiet on acquisitions after the PoshVine deal for almost a year until it announced its acquisition of digital invoicing and customer engagement platform BillMe in 2023.

In between these acquisitions and strategic investments, Razorpay also made some investments in other startups. The most notable was its investment in logistics startup Shiprocket which itself became a unicorn in 2022 after raising fresh capital from existing investors Temasek and Lightrock.

It should be noted that the investments mentioned in the infographic does not include the investments that Razorpay has made through MarsShot Ventures, an investment fund set up by Razorpay founders and its top executives to invest in early stage startups in 2021.

Notably, in November last year, Razorpay also teamed up with two of its venture capital backers -- Peak XV Partners and Lightspeed -- to launch a venture investment program with an aim to fund early-stage business-to-business (B2B) startups in the country.

With this strong history of Razorpay's acquisitions, the fintech company is likely to snap up more startups along the way to its expected IPO.