PhonePe Raises $100 Mn More From General Atlantic, Total Fundraise Reaches $850 Mn In 2023

Walmart-owned fintech decacorn PhonePe has raised another $100 Mn in equity investment from the US-based private equity (PE) firm General Atlantic.

Including the latest investment, PhonePe has raised $850 Mn in 2023, 85% of the $1 Bn funding round it started raising in January this year.

“PhonePe is pleased to announce that it has secured an additional $100 Mn investment from General Atlantic, a leading global growth equity firm, as part of its ongoing fundraise,” said the fintech giant in a statement, adding, “This latest tranche brings the total investment from General Atlantic and its co-investors to $550 Mn.” 

The investment from General Atlantic comes nearly a month after it invested $100 Mn in PhonePe and around five months after it invested $350 Mn in the fintech giant, at a pre-money valuation of $12 Bn on both occasions.

Walmart, Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global, and TVS Capital Funds are among the other investors in the company, having invested around $300 Mn in PhonePe between them.

Founded in December 2015 by Sameer Nigam, Rahul Chari, and Burzin Engineer, PhonePe claims to have more than 400 Mn registered users.

In April 2023, PhonePe continued to dominate the UPI space, as the digital payments player accounted for 421.6 Cr transactions worth INR 7.10 Lakh Cr. The Walmart-owned fintech giant commanded a 50.47% share of  UPI transaction value and 47.39% of transaction count last month.

PhonePe has outlined its intentions to utilise the funds from previous tranches in a strategic manner, aiming to expand its payment and insurance ventures in India.

The fintech giant plans to allocate resources towards the launch and rapid growth of business verticals including lending, stockbroking, ONDC-based shopping and account aggregators in the coming quarters.

In a recent development, PhonePe introduced Pincode, an ONDC-based shopping application designed with consumers in mind. This launch signifies PhonePe’s ambition to solidify its position in India’s bustling ecommerce sector.

Last week, Inc42 reported that Pincode crossed 50K installs in Bengaluru, in around a month since the app’s launch in the city. The app is said to benefit from the recent boost in ONDC orders, which are said to have crossed the per day mark of 25,000 recently, growing 500X since the start of the year.

To boost its payments and UPI vertical, the fintech giant also launched UPI Lite on its platform, a version of the payments network designed to allow users to make payments under INR 200 from their account without entering a pin.

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