Indian digital payment platform PhonePe is to spin off from Walmart-owned e-commerce marketplace Flipkart, raising $700 million in the process to fund growth and compete head-on with the likes of Google, Amazon and WhatsApp.
In just four years since its founding, PhonePe has crossed the 250 million registered user milestone, with over 100 million monthly active users (MAU) generating nearly one billion digital payment transactions in October 2020.
Using PhonePe, users can send and receive money, recharge mobile, DTH, data cards, pay at stores, make utility payments, buy gold and make investments.
In the financing round, PhonePe is raising $$700 million in primary capital at a post-money valuation of USD $5.5 billion from existing Flipkart investors led by Walmart.
Flipkart will remain PhonePe’s majority shareholder.
Sameer Nigam, founder and CEO at PhonePe, says: “Flipkart and PhonePe are already among the more prominent Indian digital platforms with over 250M users each. This partial spin-off gives PhonePe access to dedicated long-term capital to pursue our vision of providing financial inclusion to a billion Indians.”