This latest investment follows the recent $350 million primary fundraise that closed on January 19 this year
PhonePe, which has the highest share in UPI transactions, on Tuesday said it has raised another $100 million in primary capital from Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global and TVS Capital Funds, at a pre-money valuation of $12 billion. This new investment follows the recent $350 million primary fundraise that closed on January 19 this year.
PhonePe started its latest fundraise with a target of raising up to $1 billion in capital, after its domicile shift to India. With this second tranche, it has already raised $450 million within six weeks from leading investors. The company expects further investments from leading global, as well as prominent high networth Indian investors in due course.
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The fintech platform is planning to deploy these funds to scale up its payments and insurance businesses in India, as well as to launch and aggressively scale new businesses like lending, stockbroking, ONDC-based shopping and account aggregators over the next few years.
PhonePe has now enabled payments abroad, making it the first fintech platform in India to have such a facility. Indians travelling abroad can now pay foreign merchants using UPI. Under this facility, foreign currency will be deducted from the user’s bank account, which is similar to international debit card transactions.
PhonePe said all international merchant outlets in the UAE, Singapore, Mauritius, Nepal and Bhutan that have a local QR code are supported. The facility is expected to roll out in more countries.
Sameer Nigam, CEO and founder of PhonePe, said, “I would like to thank Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global and TVS Capital Funds for reposing their faith in us. We are privileged to have a great set of leading global investors, both existing and new, who believe in our mission of building massive technology platforms to bring at-scale financial and digital inclusion in India.’”
Micky Malka, founder of Ribbit Capital, said, “PhonePe lives by the same values as we do at Ribbit. We both believe that better money makes life better. PhonePe’s relentless pursuit of this principle in serving consumers and businesses all across India is a mission to live for.”
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Scott Shleifer, partner at Tiger Global, said, “We are excited to continue our partnership with PhonePe as they lead the digital payments sector in India, a market we believe is still in the early stages with significant growth potential ahead.”
Gopal Srinivasan, chairman and managing director of TCF, said, “Our investment in PhonePe reinforces our conviction on backing best in class Founders while betting on the financial digitisation of the next 450 million Indians. We view this more as an opportunity in a population scale business for New India, driven by an outstanding management team with razor sharp focus, as driven by execution.”
He added that PhonePe is No. 1 transaction platform in India with an impressive moat of robust tech capabilities. Its strong growth in financial services across payments, insurance and lending with unopened doors to two massive opportunities through ONDC and Appstore, were key reasons in our investment thesis.
