Walmart-backed fintech unicorn PhonePe on Thursday said it has raised $350 million in a fresh funding round, led by private equity firm General Atlantic, that values the company at $12 billion. The round has catapulted PhonePe into one of India’s most valued fintech companies.
The company’s previous round of funding was in November 2022, when it raised $90 million and was valued at $5.5 billion.
PhonePe said it will be using the fresh funds plans to beef up infrastructure, develop data centres, and build financial services offerings. The company also said it will also be investing in other verticals such as insurance, lending, and wealth management. Last year, PhonePe acquired mobile platform IndusOS and wealth management platforms WealthDesk and OpenQ.
PhonePe also recently shifted its domicile to India from Singapore and fully separated from Flipkart, ahead of its intended listing on the Indian bourses. E-commerce giant Flipkart had acquired PhonePe in 2016.
With over 400 million registered users, PhonePe has outranked Google Pay and Paytm in the UPI space with a more than 45% market share in UPI transactions. PhonePe’s current valuation at $12 billion also puts it ahead of digital payment unicorn Razorpay, which was last valued at around $7.5 billion.
PhonePe’s IPO debut will be closely watched given its rival Paytm’s performance; Paytm’s shares have fallen 60% since debut with its current marketcap at just over $4.3 billion. For FY22, both companies saw their losses widen. PhonePe reported a loss of $248 million, while Paytm reported a loss of $286 million. Paytm’s revenues, however, are more than double that of PhonePe’s. For FY22, Paytm posted a revenue of $479 million, compared with PhonePe’s $202 million.