PhonePe To File Draft Papers For $1.5 Bn IPO By August

Months after converting to a public entity, Walmart-owned fintech major PhonePe is edging closer to filing its draft IPO papers. As per a report by Bloomberg, the UPI leader will look to raise $1.5 Bn via the public offer which will value it at $15 Bn.

The report said that the fintech startup has finalised Kotak Mahindra, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley to helm the IPO. It is expected to file its DRHP in August this year.

PhonePe declined to comment on Inc42’s queries regarding its IPO plans.

PhonePe converted into a public company in April 2025, taking the first step towards its public listing. Prior to that, it made its listing plans public in February, without giving any details about the listing timeline or the size of the IPO. 

“PhonePe has long aspired to be a public company in India, having been founded here and being a leader in India’s fintech industry. In December 2022, PhonePe redomiciled from Singapore to India, and subsequently, established a clear corporate structure with each of its new non-payment businesses as fully owned subsidiaries,” it said in a statement in February.

Important to mention that the reported IPO valuation of $15 Bn would mark a 25% uptick from its last private valuation of $12 Bn. The startup attained the valuation when it bagged $100 Mn equity investment from General Atlantic in May 2023. 

The Walmart-owned startup has raised a total funding of nearly $2.3 Bn to date from investors like Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global, Tencent, TVS Capital Funds, among others.

The fintech major’s IPO has been years in the making, having set its sights on the Indian bourses a few years back. In 2022, the startup became one of the first major tech companies to shift its domicile back to India from Singapore in 2022, clearing the path for an imminent IPO. 

Its investors had to pay around INR 8,000 Cr (approximately $1 Bn) in capital gains taxes to facilitate the shift. 

When materialised, this would be the second largest IPO to come from the Indian fintech ecosystem. Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led company Paytm undertook the largest startup IPO in India, raising over $2.4 Bn from its public issue. MobiKwik became the second fintech startup to go for an IPO in India, raising INR 572 Cr from its public issue in 2024.

Besides PhonePe, other fintech unicorns including Groww, Navi, InCred, Pine Labs, among others, are also eyeing a public listing soon. While Groww has filed its IPO papers via the confidential route, Pine Labs is expected to file for an IPO this month. 

Meanwhile, PhonePe is Walmart’s second Indian business looking at a listing in the near future. The other one, Flipkart, is eyeing a listing soon at a potential valuation between $60 Bn and $70 Bn, which would make it one of the largest consumer tech listings in the country.

Both of these companies operated under a single unit until December 2022, when the separation of the startup majors was announced. Following the separation, Walmart, during FY24, paid $3.5 Bn to acquire shares from certain “Flipkart noncontrolling interest holders” and settle the liability to former noncontrolling interest holders of PhonePe. 

Despite its scale, PhonePe remains a loss-making entity. The startup’s loss in FY24 stood at INR 1,996 Cr, down 28% from a loss of INR 2,795 Cr it registered in the previous fiscal year. 

However, the company claimed to have turned profitable, excluding ESOP costs, in FY24, with a profit of INR 197 Cr versus a loss of INR 738 Cr in FY23. Operating revenue during the year zoomed almost 74% to INR 5,064 Cr from INR 2,914 Cr in the previous year.