Policybazaar prepares for $1.5 Bn IPO next year

Online insurance aggregator Policybazaar and its lending platform Paisabazaar is planning for public listing by next year. The Gurugram-based company has been talking with several Wall Street as well as domestic investment banks for the probable IPO.

The expected IPO will value Policybazaar and Paisabazaar at over $1.5 billion, a significant 3X upside from the valuation of the company during last financing round.

Policybazaar has met around 15 investment banks exploring IPO prospect, reports Times of India. According to the report, there is a substantial interest in the IPO which should happen by next year.

Policybazaar's CEO and co-founder Yashish Dahiya also confirmed IPO preparation. "We met investment bankers a few days ago as well, but we are yet to decide on an IPO or its timing," he said.

So far, the company has secured over $180 million investment from likes of Tiger Global, Steadview Capital, Intel Capital, Temasek and Info Edge amongst others. Policybazaar raised $75 million from three new investors including True North and IDG Venture Partners in October this year. Existing investors also participated in the round.

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The online financial products platform had reported turnover of Rs 1,000 crore during the year ended March 2016. The eight years old venture claims to control more than 90 per cent of the online insurance comparison market in India.

Expected IPO by Policybazaar is a good news for the startup ecosystem as it’s largely mired as far as exits are concerned. There are only couple of IPOs staged in the past one decade by Internet firms. For years ago, Internet and mobile-based search company Just Dial had gone public.

In September this year, matchmaking platform Bhartmatrimony went IPO while gaming major Nazara and e-commerce focused logistics firm Delhivery are gearing up for public listing next year.