The digital payments rivalry around UPI ecosystem has been largely limited to the top three players – Paytm, PhonePe, and Google Pay. All these contenders have no dearth of capital to drive growth.
Keeping its promise to infuse around $500 million in PhonePe over the course of time, Walmart has pumped in Rs 743 crore in its digital payments subsidiary.
According to RoC filing first accessed by paper.vc, the latest fund has come from PhonePe’s Singapore registered parent entity PhonePe Pvt Ltd, formerly known as FlipkartPayments.
The fresh funding come at a time when the Sameer Nigam-led company is planning to invest around Rs 500 crore over advertisements and promotions, especially on the upcoming IPL season.
Recently, PhonePe has become the broadcast sponsors for IPL and recently on-boarded Bollywood actor Aamir Khan as its brand ambassador.
With more than 50 million monthly active users, PhonePe has been eating up the UPI market share that was once dominated by Paytm only. Besides, Google Pay has also emerged as one of the fastest growing company in terms of UPI transaction.
Apart from online payments, PhonePe is touted as a leader in providing offline payment solution to more than 1 million merchants. Of late, it had partnered with Walmart to offer payment option at its 23 ‘Best Price’ wholesale cash and carry stores.
Meanwhile, PhonePe is reportedly in talks to raise funds independently. Last month, media reports suggested that PhonePe is planning to raise next round at a staggering valuation of $10 billion.
It added that KKR & Co, General Atlantic, Tiger Global, and Tencent could participate in the round that will catapult PhonePe quite closer to arch-rival Paytm.
So far, the company has raised over Rs 1,500 crore in multiple tranches.
