Paytm said on Monday it has raised $1 billion in a new financing round as the Noida-headquartered firm, which once dominated the local mobile payments market, attempts to fight back giants Google, Walmart’s PhonePe, and soon-to-arrive Facebook.
The company said the new financing round was led by U.S. asset manager T Rowe Price. Existing investors Ant Financials (contributed $400 million), SoftBank Vision Fund (contributed $200 million), and Discovery Capital also participated in the round, which valued the company at about $16 billion — higher than some of the high-profile Asian startups such as Grab and Gojek.
Paytm founder and chief executive Vijay Shekhar Sharma said the firm will use the fresh capital to court merchants, and expand its financial offerings such as lending and insurance. The company has amassed 15 million merchants, he said.
The big buck comes as India becomes the newest payments battleground for major global giants Google, Walmart, and Facebook. According to Credit Suisse, the digital payments market in India will be worth $1 trillion in the next four years, up from about $200 billion currently.
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