PayU Boosts Board In Run-Up To IPO

Prosus-owned payment solutions giant PayU, which is gearing up for its initial public offering (IPO) on the Indian bourses, has expanded its board of directors with three new appointments.

While RBI’s former deputy governor Subhash Mundra and DevRey’s founder and president Manoj Kumar Agarwal will be joining PayU as non-executive independent directors, Ashutosh Sharma, head of investments and M&A for India at Prosus Ventures, will join as non-executive non-independent director.

The board expansion comes days after PayU India received final authorisation from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as a payment aggregator (PA).

With the recent board expansion, the fintech giant looks to set new governance and compliance standards along with accelerating its investments in next-generation technology.

PayU chief executive officer Anirban Mukherjee said, “Their strategic guidance will be instrumental in strengthening PayU’s evolution into a comprehensive provider of digital payments, financial and technological services.”

Founded in 2002 by Nitin Gupta, Shailaz Nag, Jose Velez, Martin Schrimpff, Arjan Bakker, and Grzegorz Brochocki, PayU offers digital payments solutions. The company started as a global payment solution provider, headquartered in the Netherlands. It entered the Indian market with ibibo.

In 2011, ibibo launched PayU PG for websites to integrate ecommerce transactions with online payments, but the entity was demerged from the parent to form PayU India in 2014, with Gupta and Nag as its cofounders. 

Currently, PayU is owned by global investment giant Prosus. Last month, the company raised  INR 1,013 Cr from its parent via a rights issue to fuel its IPO proceedings. 

In December 2024, PayU’s chief investment and transformation officer Vijay Agicha resigned from his position.

PayU’s IPO Push

Last year, during the listing of its portfolio company Swiggy, Prosus said that it was looking to list PayU in India. 

Notably, 2025 was not the initial IPO year choice of the fintech giant. Earlier the company planned to hit the bourses in 2024. However, the plans were postponed due to unknown circumstances.

Several media reports also suggest that PayU has finalised Goldman Sachs as one of the lead bankers to helm the public issue.

While the company is yet to file its Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) with the market regulator, its IPO is likely to be out in the ongoing financial year. 

On the financial front, PayU recorded a 12% jump in its revenue to $237 Mn in the first half of the financial year ending March 2025 (H1 FY25). Besides, the company also claims to be moving towards profitability. 

While disclosing its H1 financial results, PayU said, “The EBITDA margin at -5% is 2 percentage points lower than last period but showing improvement in recent months as we drive towards profitability.”

As per Prosus’ annual report, PayU India’s revenue jumped 11% YoY to $444 Mn in FY24.

The Acquisition Spree

Besides offering digital payment solutions, PayU is an active financial investor in India.

The company has been on an acquisition spree since its entry into the Indian market. Earlier this year, PayU acquired a 43.5% stake in payments infrastructure startup Mindgate Solutions to expand its presence in the real-time payments space in India.

Over the past decade, PayU has made significant acquisitions by snapping up fintech platform Citrus Pay, digital lending platform PaySense, and digital payment security and authentication solutions Wibmo.

As per Inc42 report, India is home to more than 790 fintech startups. The Indian fintech space is expected to grow into a $2.1 Tn market opportunity by 2030.