Global private equity firm General Atlantic on Monday said it has made another $100 million (Rs 820 crore) investment in Walmart Inc-owned digital payments major PhonePe, as part of the latter's ongoing fundraise.
General Atlantic had invested similar amount in PhonePe last month at a valuation of $12 billion.
The latest tranche brings the total investment from General Atlantic and its co-investors to $550 million, the company said in a statement. The asset manager had for the first time infused $350 million in January this year.
So far, the company has raised $850 million as part of its intended target of $1 billion fundraise.
The company had also secured $100 million from Tiger Global, Ribbit Capital and TVS Capital as well as $200 million from its parent firm Walmart as part of the mega fundraise.
PhonePe is looking to deploy the funds to strengthen its infrastructure, including the development of data centres, and to build financial services offerings at scale in the country, the company had said at the time of announcing its $1 billion fundraise.
It also plans to invest in new businesses, including insurance, wealth management, Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC)-based shopping, and lending as well as scale UPI payments in India, including UPI lite and credit on UPI.
The fintech unicorn has recently elevated the chief executive officer of an ex-fintech startup, to head its insurance vertical.
PhonePe also has recently announced its change of domicile to India and a spin-off from Walmart-owned e-commerce major Flipkart. The domicile shift cost the firm’s investors a whopping Rs 8,000 crore in taxes. PhonePe was acquired by the Flipkart Group in 2016.
The company was also in the news recently after it scrap talks to acquire Bengaluru-based digital lending startup ZestMoney. This was followed by the founders of ZestMoney stepping down to be replaced by a new leadership team and reaching out to existing investors for additional infusion.
PhonePe was founded in December 2015 by Sameer Nigam, Rahul Chari and Burzin Engineer. It offers several payments and financial services, including mutual funds and insurance products. It pits against the publicly listed Paytm and Google Pay in India’s digital payments space. It claims to have more than 400 million registered users and over 35 million offline merchants spread across India, covering 99% of PIN codes.
In the financial year 2021-22, PhonePe’s consolidated operating revenue more than doubled to Rs 1,646 crore from Rs 690 crore in FY21. However, its losses jumped to Rs 2,014 crore from Rs 1,728 crore in the previous fiscal year. The company is yet to report its financial statement for the last fiscal year.
