Wait, YC would fund a startup that's a competitor to one of its other startups? Huh, this is news for me (and it opens up the possibility of me applying to YC; previously I was apprehensive because YC had funded a direct competitor ~10 years ago).

RazorPay is India-focused and started a few years ago. Until they came around, there were few (zero?) payment gateways that fulfilled all the following criteria:

* Clean API

* Support India-focused payment options (netbanking is huge here. And Razorpay also supports digital-wallets)

* Easy to get started fast with less paperwork

For every other payment gateway, you had to go through a papertrail before you could even tryout the sandbox API.

I remember Razorpay (initially atleast) required only PAN and allowed individuals to start accepting payments. This IMHO is huge indie-friendly. And back then, for every payment gateway you had to be a registered company. Not sure if that relaxed rule translated to an uptick in growth.

I think YC funds competitors often (not sure how often). For example, Amplitude and Mixpanel are both YC companies.

https://www.quora.com/Would-Y-Combinator-invest-in-a-company...