Digital payments and financial services unicorn PhonePe has raised $100 million from Tiger Global, Ribbit Capital and TVS Capital as part of its larger ongoing round just weeks after announcing an initial $350 million infusion from General Atlantic, making the company India’s most-valuable fintech.
PhonePe’s fundraising comes after the company announced in December that it was spinning off from e-commerce giant Flipkart. The Flipkart spin-off also completes PhonePe’s transition to a fully Indian-domiciled company in 2022.
The company said it plans to deploy the funds to expand its payments and insurance businesses in India and to launch and aggressively scale new companies such as lending, stock brokerage, and ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce)-based shopping and account aggregator in the next few years.
PhonePe’s lending business comes amid a crackdown on digital lending apps by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeiTY).
PhonePe’s fundraising comes as its closest rival, Paytm, has fallen by more than 50% in valuation since its IPO in November 2021, prompting public shareholders to question its ability to achieve corporate-level profitability. As of February 14, Paytm’s total market capitalisation was just over $5.2 billion.
Founded in 2015 by former Flipkart executives Nigam, Rahul Chari and Burzin Engineer, the fintech company has over 400 million registered users. It is the market leader in Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions. The company has a 47% market share in monthly UPI volume.
In 2017, the company expanded into financial services, allowing customers to buy gold, insurance and mutual funds on its platform and pay bills and utilities.
Last year, PhonePe successively acquired GigIndia, WealthDesk, and OpenQ and completed the long-halted acquisition of IndusOS.