S4 E1 | How Two Coders Built a $7.5 Billion Fintech | Destiny Avenged

Razorpay’s founders are no strangers to podcasts. But most conversations stop at scale, valuation, or IPO chatter. This one is different.

On the Blume Podcast, Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar sit down with Karthik Reddy to walk through the raw Razorpay journey—the rejections, near-dead ends, and scrappy hacks that shaped India’s payments backbone.

You’ll hear stories rarely told elsewhere: how they built coding culture at IIT Roorkee’s SDS Labs (raising money from the college itself and even sneaking in “presentation monitors” to get approvals), how a simple crowdfunding side-project revealed the broken state of India’s online payments, and why they were turned away by ~100 bankers before one “yes” finally came—with a condition of a ₹25 lakh security deposit, funded by Shashank’s grandfather.

Beyond the anecdotes, this is a deep dive into what it takes to build regulated infrastructure in India:

If you’ve only heard the polished Razorpay story, this episode offers the unvarnished version: two coders, relentless grit, and the mindset shift from “startup survival” to building an enduring institution.

Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/227rW4Ee4ob6wRT8U7pJ8s?si=c9a3bca90e394dd3

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/blume-podcast/id1651800944

#IndianStartups #Entrepreneurship #VentureCapital #BlumenVentures #StartupJourney #IndianTech

Brought to you in partnership with IDFC First Bank and Ultrahuman (Blume Fund III portco).

Blume Venture Investment Manager LLP (“Blume Ventures”)

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