Digital payments and financial services provider Razorpay on Tuesday announced a new role for co-founder Shashank Kumar as the firm’s new managing director and co-founder. The Bengaluru-based fintech player has replaced Murali Brahmadesam to the position of the chief technology officer (CTO) and head of engineering.
Kumar will continue to oversee the tech and product engineering functions along with Brahmadesam to decide the company’s tech strategy. The designation change comes with the company's growth, business demands and product engineering teams scaling up with Shashank being more involved with the company’s core strategy along with Harshil Mathur, the current co-founder and CEO, a spokesperson said.
He has spent nearly a decade at Amazon Web Services (AWS) leading some of the engineering services. Prior to that he has worked at Microsoft in several technology and leadership roles in India and the USA.
A post graduate in computer science from University of Florida, Murali had completed his engineering National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli. He will drive the overall engineering strategy and development at Razorpay, while driving the growth of Razorpay Engineering.
“With over an 800-member engineering team, we are working towards solving some of the toughest challenges that businesses face today, with innovation at its core. Murali brings in-depth knowledge of managing technology functions at scale. I am excited to have him on board at a time when Razorpay is making strides into global markets and further deepening its expertise,” Kumar said on the appointment.
Murali’s appointment comes at a time when Razorpay is fortifying its tech capabilities to build world-class technology products that are diverse, inclusive and secure by design, the company added.
Earlier this year, VCCircle exclusively said that the fintech unicorn is also in talks to acquire a majority stake in Bengaluru-based payment solutions provider, Ezetap Mobile Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
Among India’s most-valued private fintech companies, Razorpay operated by Razorpay Software Pvt Ltd, is also keen to add cross border payments to its product offerings by exploring acquisitions in this segment, VCCircle had reported.
Established in 2014, Razorpay Software, the subsidiary of Razorpay Inc., is a full-stack financial services company that provides technology payment solutions to over 8 million businesses.
Founded by alumni of IIT Roorkee, Kumar and Harshil Mathur, Razorpay is the second Indian company to be a part of Silicon Valley’s largest tech accelerator, Y Combinator.
So far, Razorpay has raised $741.5 million in capital so far and was valued at $7.5 billion in December 2021, emerging as the second most highly priced startup in India after Paytm. It is backed by the likes of Lone Pine Capital, Alkeon Capital, TCV, GIC, Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital India, Ribbit Capital, Matrix Partners, Salesforce Ventures, Y Combinator and MasterCard.
Murali Brahmadesam, chief technology officer at Razorpay said, "Razorpay has been at the forefront of inventing breakthrough products in business payment and banking that are being relied upon by millions of diverse businesses. I look forward to working with the team and joining Razorpay’s mission to build the central nervous system for fintech in India.”
