Decoding Paytm’s $1 Billion Series G round

Paytm knows the art of fundraising a little better than any other Indian unicorn. Despite losing momentum in payments and commerce businesses, Vijay Shekhar Sharma comfortably in November raised a whopping $1 billion in Series G round at a towering valuation of $16 billion. This was over a 45% jump from its $10.5 billion valuation in its valuation report as of September 2019.   

While the round was reportedly led by U.S. asset manager T. Rowe Price with the participation of existing backers — AliPay, SoftBank Vision Fund, the break-up of the round wasn’t known until now. 

Entrackr sifts through Paytm’s regulatory filings to understand the latest infusion of funds. 

According to regulatory filings made by the company last week, the company approved a special resolution to allot Series G Equity shares to several investors at an issue price of $254.58 per share. 

So far, the Noida-based firm has raked in $720 million by allotting 2.8 million Series G equity shares to nine investors in FY20. AliPay and SoftBank Vision Fund have picked up 785,597 series G equity shares each by pouring in $200 million each. T. Rowe Price, which reportedly led the round, has been allotted  589,198 shares for $150 million till now.

Discovery Capital put $75 million and picked up 294,600 shares. New York-based asset management firm Steadfast Capital Management subscribed 98,200 series G equity shares for $25 million. Saudi Arabia’s banking major Samba Financial Group also checked in the round with $25 million. 

K2 Venture Capital invested $20 million through subscribing 78,560 equity shares. Importantly, Bangkok-based K2 VC focuses on early-stage to Series B level deals. It’s quite surprising that the firm participated in Paytm’s Series G round.

South Korean banking major Hana Financial Investment (Daehan Investment Trust) invested $15 million and picked up 58,920 shares while Dubai-headquartered late-stage tech-focused investment firm Ventura Capital received 39,280 equity shares for an amount of $10 million.

Given that T. Rowe Price led the round, it’s slated to put a similar amount ($150 million) in Paytm. A couple of new investors can also chip in to make it an even $1 billion. We will keep an eye on who others are participating in the company’s Series G round.

While the company had claimed that its valuation was $16 billion. It’s almost there. According to Entrackr’s back-of-the-envelope calculation, Paytm has been valued about $15.4 billion in the Series G round.

The company also filed a valuation report dated September 30, 2019 which valued the company’s equity share at $173.86. This essentially means that it was valued at $10.51 billion at the end of September last year.

If we compare the valuation in September 2019 and now, it has recorded a sharp rise of 46.6%.