Digital payments company PhonePe has raised $350 million from new and existing investors as part of the $700 million round that it announced in December last year.
According to the company’s latest regulatory filings, American retail giant Walmart has led the financing by pumping in $281.5 million in the round while new investor China’s Tencent has contributed $50 million. New York based investment firm Tiger Global, which has also come in as a new investor, infused $16.5 million in the round, Entrackr reported.
With the latest infusion, PhonePe’s has concluded raising the $700-million across two tranches in the past eight months. The company’s total funding now stands at $1.6 billion.
Tencent’s infusion in PhonePe comes at a time when India has tightened investment norms for neighbouring countries including China. The move came after India had a border dispute with China in eastern Ladakh in June last year.
According to a PTI report, PhonePe plans to use the funds, particularity the amount received from Tencent, to support business transaction in Singapore which includes acquiring stake in companies registered there. The company is in advanced talks to acquire stake in Indus OS which operates in India but is incorporated in Singapore.
PhonePe was partially spun off from Indian e-commerce firm Flipkart in December last year in with an aim to widen the digital payments platform’s access to capital to fuel its growth. Walmart Inc-controlled Flipkart is the largest stakeholder in PhonePe with 87.30%. Walmart and Tencent now owns 10.30% and 1.8%, respectively in the company.
PhonePe, which competes with the likes of Paytm, Google Pay and Amazon Pay, continues to dominate the unified payments interface (UPI) app ecosystem in India. Its market share stood at 45.94% in July, according to the data released by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). Google Pay occupied the second spot with 34.45% market share.