Walmart brought a handful of existing investors on board with a €700 million investment in PhonePe, even as it announced a partial spin-off of Flipkart's digital payments platform. Flipkart will always remain the majority shareholder of PhonePe and the two companies will "maintain their close collaboration." “Recognizing the momentum that has been achieved, as well as PhonePe's significant growth potential, Flipkart's board has determined that now is the right time to partially seal PhonePe so that it can access capital. dedicated to funding its four-year long-term ambitions,” Flipkart said in a statement. In four years since its inception, PhonePe has passed the milestone of 250 million registered users, with more than 100 million Monthly Active Users (MAUs) generating nearly 2020 billion digital payment transactions as of October XNUMX.
PhonePe valued at €5.5 billion
PhonePe, which competes with GooglePay and Paytm, has raised €700 million in primary capital. The funds are raised at a post-coin valuation of €5.5 billion from existing Flipkart investors led by Walmart, Flipkart said in a statement. "The partial spin-off also offers PhonePe the opportunity to form a new board of directors focused on supporting its development and creating a bespoke equity incentive program or ESOP for its employees," Flipkart said. PhonePe has more than 100 million active users, which allowed it to register around 250 billion digital payment transactions in October this year. Sameer Nigam, Founder and CEO of PhonePe, said: "Flipkart and PhonePe are already among the largest digital platforms in India with over 600.000 million users each. This partial split gives PhonePe access to capital dedicated to long term to furthering our vision of bringing financial inclusion to one billion Indians." Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO of Flipkart Group, also noted, “As Flipkart Commerce continues to grow strongly to meet the needs of Indian customers, we are excited about the group's future prospects. This move will help PhonePe maximize its potential as it moves into the next phase of its development, and will also maximize value creation for Flipkart and our shareholders. "PhonePe also offers a range of financing services, including 11 insurance policies. PhonePe has been helped a lot with Flipkart's festival sales and the growth of fantasy sports app Dream XNUMX. Source: Flipkart