PhonePe, a pioneer in digital payments and financial services, has raised an additional $200 million from Walmart, its largest shareholder, as part of its ongoing projected $1 billion investment round, giving it a pre-money worth of $12 billion.
PhonePe stated in January that it would be funding $1 billion in installments at a $12 billion valuation. The unicorn fintech company raised $350 million from General Atlantic and $100 million from Tiger Global Management, Ribbit Capital, and TVS Capital since that time. In a statement on March 17, the firm stated that it anticipates additional investments, which will be disclosed in due time. The initial Moneycontrol story about PhonePe seeking more funding from General Atlantic and others at a $12 billion value appeared in October. The fundraising effort by PhonePe comes after the company announced its spin-off from big e-commerce company Flipkart in December. Also, the Flipkart spin-off completes PhonePe’s 2022 transformation to a totally Indian-domiciled business.
The company stated that over the next three years, it intends to use these funds to aggressively build new businesses like lending, stockbroking, ONDC (open network for digital commerce)-based shopping, and account aggregators as well as to expand its payments and insurance operations in India. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeiTY) have been cracking down on digital lending apps at the time of PhonePe’s lending ventures.
“We want to express our gratitude to Walmart, who holds the majority of our stock, for continuing to support our long-term goals. We are enthusiastic about the following stage of our growth as we develop new services for Indian customers and businesses and enable financial inclusion throughout the country “the CEO and co-founder of PhonePe, Sameer Nigam, remarked.
The fintech company was established in 2015 by former Flipkart executives Nigam, Rahul Chari, and Burzin Engineer. It currently has over 400 million registered customers and dominates the market for UPI transactions. The corporation has a 47 percent market share in terms of monthly UPI volumes.
In addition to bill and utility payments, the company’s platform now enables consumers to purchase gold, insurance, and mutual funds in 2017. This was part of the company’s 2017 expansion into financial services.
PhonePe has purchased GigIndia, WealthDesk, OpenQ, and finished the long-awaited acquisition of IndusOS over the past year. The timing of PhonePe’s fundraising effort coincides with Paytm, its closest rival, having seen its valuation decline by more than 50% since going public in November 2021, raising concerns among public shareholders about the company’s potential to achieve company-level profitability. As of March 17, Paytm has a total market value of slightly over $4.7 billion.
