PhonePe’s $1 Bn Funding Round: General Atlantic Invests $100 Mn More

Walmart-owned PhonePe has raised another $100 Mn from existing investor General Atlantic and its co-investors as part of its ongoing $1 Bn fundraise. The US-based private equity (PE) firm invested $350 Mn in the payments giant at a pre-money valuation of $12 Bn earlier this year.

The current investment is also said to have taken place at a similar valuation.

“PhonePe confirms a $100 Mn in an additional tranche of investment from General Atlantic, a leading global growth equity firm, and its co-investors as part of our ongoing fundraise. General Atlantic initially invested $350 Mn in PhonePe in January 2023,” a company spokesperson told Inc42.

So far, the Walmart-owned payments giant has raised $750 Mn from its investors, including the latest funding round, this year. Walmart, Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global, and TVS Capital Funds are among the other investors in the company.

Earlier this year, PhonePe said it was looking to raise up to $1 Bn from global and Indian high-net-worth investors. 

The latest of these tranches came in March when Walmart invested $200 Mn in the fintech giant it acquired as part of the deal that saw the US retail giant buy Indian ecommerce decacorn Flipkart in 2018 for $16 Bn.

Founded in December 2015 by Sameer Nigam, Rahul Chari, and Burzin Engineer, PhonePe claims to have more than 400 Mn registered users. Last month, PhonePe processed 407.63 Cr UPI transactions worth INR 7.07 Lakh Cr.

The payments decacorn commanded a 46.38% market share in terms of transaction count, while it was 49.45% in terms of the transaction value.

PhonePe has said over the last tranches that it plans to use the proceeds to scale up its payments and insurance businesses in India. The fintech decacorn will also deploy funds to launch and aggressively scale new businesses such as lending, stockbroking, ONDC-based shopping and account aggregators over the next few years.

PhonePe recently also launched a consumer-centric shopping app Pincode, which is built on the ONDC platform. The move is suggestive of PhonePe’s plan to strengthen its hold in India’s ecommerce space.

Pincode will connect consumers with their neighbourhood stores and looks to offer the convenience of online ordering, discounts, instant refunds and returns. The neighbourhood stores registered on the app will sell products from recognised brands as well as locally manufactured products like groceries, apparel, footwear and accessories.