PhonePe, a Wallmart-owned digital payments app has secured USD 100 million from a US private equity firm General Atlantic and its at a pre-money valuation of USD 12 billion.
This fresh fundraise is part of PhonePe's ongoing USD 1 billion capital round following its relocation to India. The platform has raised USD 750 million from a number of global investors with this tranche.
PhonePe stated in January that it would raise USD 1 billion in tranches at a valuation of USD 12 billion. Since then, the fintech has received USD 350 million from General Atlantic, USD 100 million from Tiger Global Management, Ribbit Capital, and TVS Capital and USD 200 million from Walmart, its largest stakeholder.
PhonePe intends to use the money to launch and expand new companies in areas including as insurance, wealth management, lending, stockbroking, ONDC-based shopping, and account aggregation. The funds will also be used to help PhonePe accelerate the next wave of growth for UPI payments in India, such as UPI light and Credit on UPI.
PhonePe just unveiled Pincode, a new consumer-facing application that will be incorporated into India's Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) platform.
The Pincode app will promote local merchants and sellers, as well as digitally connect each city's consumers with their neighbourhood stores, which they typically buy from offline, with the convenience of online ordering, excellent savings, and rapid refunds and returns.
PhonePe, founded in December 2015 by Nigam, Rahul Chari, and Burzin Engineer, provides consumers with financial services. On the platform, it offers mutual funds and insurance products and competes in India's digital payments industry with publicly traded Paytm and Google Pay.
In 2106, Flipkart Group acquired PhonePe. The digital payments platform claims to have over 400 million registered users, over 35 million offline merchants across the country and spread across 99% of PIN codes in India.