Tag: Payment Services

  • How PhonePe Earns Money? | PhonePe Business Model

    PhonePe is the online payment platform that creates, hosts and manages your online transaction and also, provides various services through the Internet. Today, there are plenty of companies that provide you with the facility of online transactions. PhonePe is included among such companies. National Payments Corporation of India has evolved its technology and provided UPI to make the transactions absolutely convenient.

    Well, our minds always come across the question of how these apps (including PhonePe) earn money? Or why do they spend so much money to gather customers? These questions are obvious. To understand this, you need to get your foot stable on the Broker. PhonePe and other similar applications work as a broker app. They work through the possession by leveraging the customers and traders.

    In the era of capitalism of data, Online Payments transaction industries are the leading wave. They tend to evaluate their worth extremely high in the data-driven market. Therefore, in this article, we provided you with a basic guide on how PhonePe earns money? Stay tuned!

    About PhonePe
    PhonePe Business Model
    How PhonePe earns money?
    PhonePe Revenue Model

    How does PhonePe make money | PhonePe Business Model

    About PhonePe

    The prominently established Indian digital payment application, PhonePe was founded in the year 2015 by Sameer Nigam, Burzin Engineer and Rahul Chari. The application was based on the UPI (Unified Payments Interface) transactions. The company headquarters exists in Bangalore, India.

    PhonePe is an successful application that has 11 different Indian languages. It provides plenty of features such as mobile recharge, receiving and sending money, DTH, utility payments, tax savings funds, data cards, and more. As of March 2025, PhonePe has crossed 600 million registered users on its platform.

    The Reserve Bank of India has licensed PhonePe for the service of money transactions and payment system with an authorized name.

    PhonePe launched a special insurance plan for travellers who attended the Maha Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, held from January 13 to February 26, 2025.

    The plan, developed in collaboration with ICICI Lombard General Insurance, was offered in two variants: INR 59 for train or bus travellers and INR 99 for domestic flight passengers.


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    PhonePe Business Model

    Besides the transactions of money from one bank to another, PhonePe has many more tremendous features such as it provides the facility of purchasing grocery, insurance, food and many more.

    PhonePe facilitates the supply of the products that are sold on this app. PhonePe is a multiple purpose application. It also provides the service of mobile recharge, electricity bills and other household bill payments.

    PhonePe charges the commission on the payments made by the customers from any online or offline merchants. However, the UPI transactions are based on IMPS that’s why it doesn’t charge any additional money from the banks.

    PhonePe POS machine
    PhonePe POS machine

    Recently, PhonePe has launched its POS machine that is available in almost every shop that allows PhonePe payment. The POS machine makes the payment extremely convenient and handy. PhonePe POS machine is powered by Bluetooth technology and is worlds lowest cost POS device in the world.


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    How PhonePe earns money?

    Here are the sources through which PhonePe makes money:

    Mobile Recharge

    As you know, PhonePe provides the facility of online recharge of your mobile very conveniently. It earns from the commission that is made from the operator you recharged on.

    Bill Payment

    When a bill payment is made through PhonePe on any company, PhonePe gets the commission from the respective company.

    Apps

    There is a separate column for different apps like OYO Rooms, Dominos, Myntra, Grofers and many more, on the PhonePe app. So, when you do any payment on these mentioned apps, PhonePe gets the commission respectively.

    Gift Vouchers

    You get plenty of gift Vouchers of different apps like Oxygen wallet, Airtel Money, Freecharge and more on PhonePe. It earns the commission on every sold gift voucher.

    Digital Gold

    PhonePe also allows you to buy gold, so when you do, it charges a little extra from you than the actual pricing.

    Mutual Fund

    Recently, PhonePe added the mutual fund’s investment features to its app. So, when you invest in any mutual funds, PhonePe charges a distinct amount of commission on the respective company.

    UPI Transactions

    PhonePe usually does not make money from the UPI transactions. It only analyzes your data to create a new product.


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    PhonePe Revenue Model

    PhonePe’s revenue has seen significant growth over the years, but expenses have also increased, resulting in continued losses. Below is a detailed breakdown.

    Particulars FY24 FY23 FY22 FY21 FY20
    Revenue INR 5,725 crore INR 3,085 crore INR 1,692.8 crore INR 725.3 crore INR 427.2 crore
    Expenses INR 7,756 crore INR 5,907 crore INR 3,705.7 crore INR 2,456.9 crore INR 2,202.9 crore
    Profit/(Loss) INR -1,996 crore INR -2,795 crore INR -2,013.8 crore INR -1,728.8 crore INR -1,771.7 crore

    PhonePe Financials
    PhonePe Financials

    In 2024, PhonePe’s operating revenue grew by 74% to INR 5,064 crore, up from INR 2,914 crore in 2023. However, total expenses also increased by 31% from INR 5,907 crore in 2023 to INR 7,756 crore in 2024. Despite this, PhonePe reduced its losses by 29%, with a loss of INR 1,996 crore in 2024 compared to INR 2,795 crore in 2023.

    PhonePe does not have its own payment bank and also, it doesn’t charge any money when you regress any of your money back to your account. In fact, it provides you with different offers and cashback of the money you paid through any transactions.

    Therefore, PhonePe works by promoting several brands on its app with different offers and vouchers. It earns the major fraction from the bill payments and recharges.

    Moreover, PhonePe earns from Yes Bank by providing the analytic database and targeting its products to the users. Flipkart also utilises the service of monitoring purchasing and catching better advertisers, deals and notification through PhonePe to the customers. It collects and saves an ample amount of money from Flipkart from preventing channeling other payments apps.

    Conclusion

    PhonePe facilitates the services and payments along with the online transactions for several products available on the PhonePe application or website or any other external merchant stores (online or offline).

    PhonePe is not an established bank or online payment bank. It is an application with a service not based on any banking services but itself. PhonePe works through a monopoly to earn its money and provides a safe and secure online transaction.

    It is very prominent and widely famous across India with its great offers and services. PhonePe earns money in an absolute conventional manner and provides the best features and offers for payment.

    FAQs

    What is PhonePe and how does it work?

    PhonePe is a mobile payment app that lets users send money, pay bills, recharge, and shop using the UPI system. It works by linking your bank account to the app, allowing secure and instant transactions directly from your phone.

    Who is CEO of PhonePe?

    Sameer Nigam is the CEO of PhonePe.

    Does Flipkart owns PhonePe?

    Yes, Flipkart acquired PhonePe in 2016.

    Does PhonePe charge for money transfer?

    PhonePe does not charge for money transfers.

    Who has founded PhonePe?

    Sameer Nigam is the founder of PhonePe company. He has founded PhonePe in 2015.

    Who are the top competitors of PhonePe?

    PhonePe’s top competitors include:

    • Mobikwik
    • Paytm
    • Google Pay
    • BharatPe
    • Juspay
    • Razorpay

    What is the difference between PhonePe and PhonePe business?

    PhonePe is for individual users to send money, pay bills, and recharge, whereas
    PhonePe Business is for merchants to accept payments, track sales, and manage transactions.

    What is the business model of PhonePe?

    PhonePe operates on a service-based business model. It earns revenue by charging merchants transaction fees, offering value-added services like recharges and bill payments, and selling financial products such as insurance, mutual funds, and digital gold. The company also provides POS devices to merchants and uses user data to cross-sell personalized financial products. While UPI transactions are free, PhonePe’s income comes mainly from these additional services.

  • List of Startups Acquired By Razorpay

    Startup acquisition seems to be a great trend for many big companies. The companies or the startups that have made it big likes to indulge themselves in the game of acquisitions.

    So, when a small startup is doing well in the market but does not have the capability to sustain that, bigger companies tend to take control of it. However, this does not mean that the big companies intend to turn them into successful businesses.

    Razorpay is one of the startups that has made a huge success and now has jumped into this field of acquisitions. Over the years, it has acquired startups like TERA Finlabs, Opfin, and more.

    About Razorpay
    List of Startups Acquired by Razorpay

    1. IZealiant Technologies
    2. Curlec
    3. TERA Finlabs
    4. Opfin
    5. ThirdWatch

    About Razorpay

    It is India’s top and leading company founded in 2014 by Shashank Kumar. Along with him, Harshil Mathur is the co-founder. The company is based in Bengaluru, Karnataka.

    In simple terms, it is an online payment system or mode. Razorpay offers solutions for combined payments in one place. It enables businesses to obtain, process, and also distribute payments with its product array.

    It allows you to use any payment mode. This includes debit and credit cards, UPI, mobile wallets (Mobikwik, JioMoney, etc.) multi-currency, and more. It helps businesses and traders to automate bank transfers, bills, checks, salaries, etc.

    It is a digital system of payments that acts as a link between many apps. The decreasing role of debit and credit cards has given rise to the idea of auto-payments. In this regard, Razorpay offers features like UPI autopay.

    It has administrative features like reporting, payout time, and dispute resolution. Security features like two-factor authentication, fraud protection tools, and more.

    Along with these, other features include E-commerce integration, application programming interface, accounting software integration, etc.

    About Razorpay

    List of Startups Acquired by Razorpay

    Startup Acquisition is a process where bigger companies buy an entire small startup or take the maximum authority over it by buying most of its shares or equity. This usually happens, when large companies want to remove their competition in the market.

    Also, many startups begin their businesses with the hope of ultimately selling them in the future. This is because, after a point of time, the growth of certain startups becomes stagnant. So, going under the shelter of big companies help them to stay afloat and get better exposure.

    Razorpay is one of the most noted companies in India. This payment platform made online transactions super easy and efficient. Its efficiency, great strategies, and right funding at right time made it a Unicorn startup in 2020.

    Over the years of its existence, it has made a total of five acquisitions. It has also made investments in NextPay, Shiprocket, and MSMEx.

    The following is the list of startups acquired by Razorpay:

    IZealiant Technologies

    Founded: 2015
    Acquired: March 2022

    This is the most recent acquisition made by Razorpay. It is a Pune-based fin-tech startup founded in the year 2015 by Prashant Mengawade. It provides for payment transaction processing by banks, traders, and processors.

    The startup provides application programming interface empowered, cloud-ready, and mobile-first payment processing products. The businesses are able to receive, process, and distribute the payments smoothly with this startup.

    It offers features like multi-factor authentication, 3D secure 2.0, E-commerce acquiring, Mobile POS and Micro ATM, and more.

    Razorpay announced the acquisition of the startup on the 16th of March, 2022 for an undisclosed amount.


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    Curlec

    Founded: 2018
    Acquired: February 2022

    It is a Malaysian direct debit payment startup founded in the year 2018 by Zac Liew and Steve Kucia. The startup is designed to aid and ease the collection of recurring payments.

    The startup tends to make settlements between customers, merchants, and their banks. It manages transactions and also collects cash receipts. It ensures all this by building technology on top of the payment framework.

    It offers features like card payments, direct debit, payment collection, payouts, management of subscriptions, billing, and more.

    Razorpay announced the acquisition of this startup on the 8th of February, 2022. It acquired the startup for an amount between 19 to 20 Million dollars.

    TERA Finlabs

    Founded: 2017
    Acquired: July 2021

    It is a startup that offers businesses financing solutions. It was founded in the year 2017 by Pradeep Rathnam and Harshil Mathur. It is based in Bengaluru. It provides technology, risk, and capital solutions.

    This risk technology startup offers digital lending solutions for the organizations of finance and customer technology companies.

    It is known for its great specialty in digital lending. It specializes in data-driven risk management, credit underwriting, and capital solutions.

    Razorpay announced the acquisition of the startup for an undisclosed amount on the 19thof July 2021.

    Opfin

    Founded: 2017
    Acquired: November 2019

    It is a payroll management startup founded in the year 2017 by Anuj Jain. It is based in Gurugram. This enables the customers to custom-make their payment workflow to be as hands-off or hands-on as they want.

    The startup is super helpful for small businesses. Its interface is perceptive and simple to use. This discards irrelevant jargon and unwanted steps.

    It offers a wide variety of features like compliance management, attendance management, approval process control, application programming interface, attendance tracking, and more.

    Razorpay announced its acquisition of it on the 23rd of November, 2019 without disclosing the amount.


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    ThirdWatch

    It is a fraud detection startup founded in the year 2016 by Shashank Kumar. The startup rules out scams and frauds in digital, e-commerce, and banking transactions by using Artificial Intelligence. It is based in Gurugram.

    The startup provides automatic detection and prevention solutions by using AI, big data technology, location profile, and device fingerprinting.

    It offers features like risky order profiling, verification of shipping addresses, model customization, intelligent automation, and more. This helps to cut fraud, keep the rate of interest in check, and improve success and profitability.

    Razorpay declared its acquisition of the startup on the 5thof August, 2019. This was the first acquisition made by Razorpay for an undisclosed amount.

    Conclusion

    Over its eight years of existence, Razorpay has surely made great progress and created a significant name for itself in the market. It has not only made itself successful but has also helped various other businesses by making their processes easy and efficient.

    Since its birth, it has made a total of five acquisitions. All these startups have helped Razorpay to become even more skillful than it was on its own. These have strengthened the company more in the fields of banking services, neobanking, payout processing, e-commerce fraud detection, and more.

    FAQs

    What are the startups acquired by Razorpay?

    Razorpay has acquired 5 startups:

    • IZealiant Technologies
    • Curlec
    • TERA Finlabs
    • Opfin
    • ThirdWatch

    Who is the founder of Razorpay?

    Shashank Kumar and Harshil Mathur are the founders of Razorpay.

    What is the valuation of Razorpay?

    Razorpay has a valuation of $7.5 billion.

    Is Razorpay a unicorn?

    Razorpay got unicorn status in 2021.

  • Recordent: Credit Management Platform to Secure Your Business Growth

    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Recordent.

    Credit management reinforces a company’s liquidity and improves cash flow if done properly. Credit management helps in managing customer risks and accounts receivables. There are several businesses running on credit terms. Such businesses need timely payments and a transparent cash-flow management. Recordent helps them in managing payments. Recordent is a tech-driven platform that provides credit management services to SMEs, rental companies, and large corporates. Their services helps in providing better and transparent cash-flow management and builds trust among customers which consequently helps in securing business growth.

    Read the Success story of Recordent and know more about the startup, founders, the idea of starting up, business model, and its journey towards growth.

    Recordent – Company Highlights

    Startup Name Recordent
    Headquarters Hyderabad
    Industry Re-inventing Credit Management
    Founded 2020
    Founders Harish Mamtani and Winny Patro

    Recordent – About
    Recordent – Industry
    Recordent – Founders and Team
    Recordent – Idea & Startup Story
    Recordent – Name, Tagline, and Logo
    Recordent – Business Model & Revenue Model
    Recordent – Product & Services
    Recordent – Marketing
    Recordent – Challenges Faced
    Recordent – Funding
    Recordent – Revenue
    Recordent – Recognition and Achievements
    Recordent – Partnerships
    Recordent – Future Plans
    Recordent – FAQs

    Recordent – About

    Recordent, is an innovative technology platform focused on providing credit management services, enabling businesses in their secured growth. Their solutions are designed for better cash-flow management and business expansion while creating trust and transparency in seller-buyer relationships through data.

    Recordent’s long term vision is to enable trust and accountability for businesses that offer a service, credit or a loan to their customers. The Recordent team work with a single aim to empower businesses to reduce their credit and financial risks through its solutions.

    Recordent – Industry

    Recordent largely operate for the SMEs industry. The current market size stands at $27 bn. Recordent takes valuable information from reports of Atradius, TransUnion & BCG along with the Govt. MSME ministry website.

    In terms of the market growth, Recordent anticipate a 20% YoY growth for the coming 5 years.


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    Recordent – Founders and Team

    Harish Mamtani is the founder of Recordent, and Winny Patro is the co-founder.

    Harish Mamtani - Co-Founder of Recordent
    Harish Mamtani – Co-Founder of Recordent

    Harish comes on board with exceptional experience in the education sector. He is the Founder & board member of Seed Schools that was founded in March 2013 to invest in and provide curriculum, training, and management services to high quality low-cost private schools (LCPS) in India. He is also the board member for SoftWear Automation, a company disrupting the $100 billion sewn products industry by creating autonomous sewn good worklines for Home Goods, Footwear & Apparel. Harish Mamtani is more focused towards fundraising, partnerships and growth for Recordent.

    Winny Patro is the CEO & Co-Founder of Recordent.

    Winny Patro - Co-Founder of Recordent
    Winny Patro – Co-Founder of Recordent

    Winny Patro manages Day to day operations and running the company. He comes with over 12+Years of work experience in public sector, entrepreneurship, business consulting and coaching. Currently, he is spearheading and managing the day to day operations and running of Recordent.

    Harish & Winny met in 2017 for a social media impact project. Since, Winny was working with government bodies, and that was the first time they spoke. In around 2019, they were quite concerned and shared similar thoughts on the current MSME industry’s payment cycles and credit risks involved. They came together in a quick thought and wanted to start a company that could solve the standing issues for the MSME sector. And that is how the journey for Recordent began.

    Recordent Team
    Recordent Team

    They are now a team of 35+ driven individuals and subject matter experts that have been working on Recordent’s goals to achieve a scenario where businesses are at a position to make sound decisions in terms of finance, and overall credit reduction.

    Recordent – Idea & Startup Story

    Delayed customer payments was a pain point that both Harish and Winny Patro experienced in the companies that they were running earlier. Their inspiration came from this shared peril where they began thinking on the lines to find a startup that could provide solutions for delayed payments and enable businesses to reduce their credit risks.

    The research that went into was first to deep dive into how the trade credit sector operates, and how manufacturing to the last mile delivery value chain works, the trade credit practices and how the credit practices are. How the delayed payments are furthermore affecting the value chain. The founders spoke with key people in the trade credit sector, in trade associations and with bankers to understand the viability of their idea, and that gave us a kickstart to all activities that are currently happening at Recordent.

    Recordent Logo
    Recordent Logo

    The name of the startup was derived by bringing in the most important factor for SMEs that is to track, collate or simply, record their due payments. Furthermore, Recordent came from the idea of ‘recording’ all key business collections and invoices on a unified platform.

    Record + Payment = Recordent

    They have recently revamped their branding and logo. Recordent’s new logo depicts growth, and that is why it is a slightly upward arrow. The yellow color in the logo represents optimis, while the lighter blue in the middle stands for ambitions, and finally the darker blue shade represents trust, a solid foundation for Recordent.

    Their tagline is ‘Lower your risk. Power Growth’. It simply talks about businesses to lower their risks, and therefore empower growth.

    Recordent – Business Model & Revenue Model

    Recordent’s platform enables businesses to submit their customer dues/invoices on a regular basis to collect payments faster and on-time. Inspired from the Credit Bureau model, Recordent informs customers on how their positive payment track record can be viewed by other businesses & lenders to offer better terms on credit or a loan; thus, motives and creates urgency to pay dues sooner than later.

    Recordent – Product & Services

    Recordent is a technology platform that enables businesses to improve collections by credit profiling their customers; and reducing risk by providing insights into the payment history of prospective customers. We’ve partnered with Equifax, Leading credit bureau for businesses particularly MSMEs to make better credit decisions before offering credit against goods and services by providing a consent based comprehensive credit report of potential customers. The startup provides credit reports of businesses, entities and individuals with insights into their payment history for a better financial or business decision.

    Recordent – Marketing

    The first 100 customers came on board completely through direct selling and through associations. Recordent adopted the digital route post reaching a considerable number of members. They now operate in a hybrid marketing model which is a combination of direct selling and digital methods. Their most successful marketing campaign so far has been to have done sms, and marketing affiliations with trade credit associations.

    Recordent – Challenges Faced

    The initial market that Recordent went after were schools and educational institutions. As the pandemic hit and the schools and institutions shut, the markets were slightly tough to operate on given the current situations. The company soon went ahead with a B2B marketing model, and that is how they put together Recordent, and its solutions.


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    Recordent – Revenue

    Currently, Recordent generates a revenue of 4lacs per month, and they have a user base 12,000+ businesses. Some of its notable clients include Udaan, Faith Lumber Pvt Ltd, Pennar industries and Sterling. Their plan for the next 1-2 years is to cater to at least 40,000 businesses and empower their financial well being and fuel their growth.

    Recordent – Funding

    Recordent has raised a funding of $400K in November 2021.

    Date Stage Amount Investors
    November 2021 Angel Investment $400K Family Office of Kantamaneni & IIM Calcutta Innovation Park and other angel investors from India and the US

    Recordent – Recognition and Achievements

    Recordent’s constant endeavors are targeted towards building a trustworthy and solution-oriented platform. Recordent is now ISO 27001 certified, a worldwide standard certification that indicates a commitment to data security and assurance that data assets are safe.

    Recordent – Partnerships

    We’ve also partnered with Equifax India to help businesses particularly, MSMEs to make better credit decisions before offering credit against goods and services by providing a consent based comprehensive credit report of potential customers.

    Its partnership with Equifax US aims to reduce trade-related risks for Indian exporters and importers who trade with U.S. companies. The solution enables Indian exporters to check the credit history of their U.S. business clients. These checks save on financing costs, increase competitiveness and expand commercial activity between U.S. and Indian businesses. Indian importers can also make use of the information to ensure their purchases are from valid and creditworthy businesses.


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    Recordent – Future Plans

    The coming future, the focus will be to keep up the tech oriented solutions and spend time in customer acquisition. Recordent’s major focus areas will be collaborations with complementary fintech and banks for providing financing options to businesses, invoice reconciliation, and adding more services and features to the tech platform for further ease of use.

    Recordent – FAQs

    When was Recordent founded?

    Recordent was founded in 2020.

    Who are the founders of Recordent?

    Harish Mamtani and Winny Patro are the founders of Recordent.

    Who are the competitors of Recordent?

    Some of the competitors of Recordent are:

    • Invoiced
    • YayPay by Quadient
    • Tesorio
    • Lockstep
    • Versapay

    Has Recordent received any funding?

    Yes, Recordent has raised a total funding of $400K.