Prosus Eyes PayU IPO In 2025

On the day its portfolio company Swiggy made its debut on the Indian stock exchanges, Dutch investor Prosus said it is eyeing a listing for PayU in India in 2025. 

Prosus’ chief investment officer Ervin Tu said that the investor was initially eyeing PayU’s initial public offering (IPO) in 2024 but the payments solutions provider had to defer those plans, as per a report by Reuters.

“We’re late into 2024 already, but we hope that it could be a 2025 event. We’re still working with the company to firm the best timing,” the report quoted Tu as saying during a media call. 

PayU, which was founded by Nitin Gupta, Shailaz Nag Jose Velez, Martin Schrimpff, Arjan Bakker, and Grzegorz Brochocki in 2002, is owned by Prosus’ Nasper Group. Its Indian subsidiary, PayU India, was launched in 2011, with Nitin Gupta and Shailaz Nag as its cofounders. 

Besides India, it provides payment and financial services across Latin America, Southeast Asia, Central and Eastern Europe and Africa.

It is pertinent to mention that Prosus realised 3X gains on its investment in Swiggy from the company’s IPO. Earlier in the day, Prosus said it raked in $2 Bn from the IPO. 

Commenting on Swiggy’s IPO, Prosus’ CEO Fabricio Bloisi said that the firm currently has a healthy pipeline of IPO bound countries in India. 

“India remains a key growth market for Prosus given the country’s impressive digital transformation in the consumer and enterprise sectors. We are excited about the region and see huge opportunities for value creation including a strong IPO pipeline within our current portfolio,” he said in a statement. 

Prosus’ plans to make PayU’s Indian subsidiary a public entity date back years. In 2023, the company was said to be looking to file its IPO papers with markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) for an IPO of at least $500 Mn.

Earlier in October, it was reported that PayU has finalised Goldman Sachs as one of the lead bankers to helm the public issue and will likely file its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) by early 2025. 

The company has been focusing on bringing up its top line in the run up to its IPO plans. In the fiscal year 2023-24 (FY24), PayU India’s revenue grew 11% year-on-year (YoY) to $444 Mn. 

While the Prosus-owned company aims to lead the fintech space in India, it is worth mentioning that it hasn’t been long since it officially became a payment aggregator (PA) in India. PayU received an in-principle authorisation from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as a PA in April 2024.