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PhonePe

Flipkart infuses Rs 518 Cr in payment arm PhonePe

PhonePe

The digital payment space has become a hotbed in India. The digital war played among Paytm, Phonepe and Google’s Tez has been intensifying day by day.

Flipkart-owned UPI-enabled digital payments platform PhonePe has received Rs 518 crore infusion from the parent company based out of Singapore.

The latest investment by Flipkart is learned to be a part of SoftBank-backed company’s commitment in October last year. It has committed to invest around $500 million into the payments platform.

Singapore-based Flipkart Payments was allocated shares of PhonePe for Rs 2,110 per share, reports TOI via RoC sourced from Paper.vc.

In October last year, Flipkart Payments had put in $38.7 million in its payment company. So far, PhonePe has raised $75 million worth of infusion by Flipkart since the acquisition (excluding the current round). PhonePe was acquired by Flipkart in 2015.

The battle in UPI ecosystem is slated to get intensified as WhatsApp plans to open its UPI-enabled payment to its 250 million user base in India soon. Besides, Google has also entered the Indian market with digital payment platform Tez.

Recently, Paytm had declared itself as a market leader in terms of UPI transactions by dethroning government-run BHIM and one of its close competitors PhonePe. However, PhonePe’s founder Sameer Nigam had criticised the Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led company for providing wrong details over UPI transactions.

The Bengaluru-headquartered firm has over 75 million installs, and the app drives the highest number of merchant UPI transactions in India. Besides payments, PhonePe allows users to recharge mobile, DTH, data cards, make utility payments, buy gold and shop online and offline.

PhonePe claims to be available as a payment option across 60,000 offline and online merchant (MakeMyTrip, PVR, McDonald’s, Flipkart, ClearTrip, Myntra, KFC, TicketNew, Spencer’s, among others) outlets covering food, travel, groceries, movie tickets, etc.

To cater offline merchants, the firm had also launched PoS device that can be used for payments at Kirana stores, petrol pumps, food chains, and among others.

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