Indian start-ups are not overpriced: Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma

Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma has stated that Indian start-ups are not overpriced and that "many are underestimating what India's opportunity will be".

"If we go by anything that happened in the US, China, or other parts of the world, including Indonesia, India is an opportunity which will dwarf many other countries' start-up or technology ecosystems," noted Sharma at the Bloomberg India Economic Forum on Thursday.

According to Sharma, the wave of increasing valuations for the country's tech start-ups is here to stay as India is offering a great growth opportunity. Sharma's online payment platform Paytm this week raised $2.5 billion in the nation's biggest ever Initial Public Offer (IPO).

Researcher Tracxn has stated that investors, attracted by India's opportunity, have placed $7.6 billion into the country's fintech firms. This is nearly four-fold the amount their Chinese counterparts attracted, reported Bloomberg.

Digital start-ups in other sectors have also witnessed an overwhelming demand for shares such as FSN E-Commerce Ventures Ltd., the entity that operates the Indian beauty start-up Nykaa, and food delivery app Zomato Ltd.

The open-network has attracted hundreds of firms to India's fintech sector such as Alphabet Inc.'s Google, Walmart's PhonePe and Amazon. This has led to a world-beating surge in digital payments.

Digital payments have jumped five-fold in the last five years. They are estimated to touch $2.2 trillion by March 2023 while digital lending is expected to triple to $350 billion.

"Providing clarity on the regulations, helping easy exit for funds from start-ups, creating a local pool of capital from investors and avoiding retroactive taxation will open the flood gates of money further," noted Vani Kola, the founder of early-stage venture capital firm Kalaari Capital at Bloomberg India Economic Forum.

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