Digital payments and financial services startup PhonePe has raised an additional $100 million from Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global and TVS Capital Funds at a pre-money valuation of $12 billion.
The deal follows the $350 million primary fundraise that PhonePe closed in January.
Post its domicile shift to India, PhonePe had announced that its planned to raise as much as $1 billion in tranches, and that it “expects further investments from prominent global and Indian high net worth investors soon”.
PhonePe will use money to scale up its payments and insurance businesses in India, as well as to launch and scale new businesses such as lending, stockbroking, ONDC-based shopping, and account aggregators over the next few years.
“We are excited to continue our partnership with PhonePe as they lead the digital payments sector in India, a market we believe is still in the early stages with significant growth potential ahead,” said Scott Shleifer, Partner, Tiger Global, in a statement announcing the deal.
PhonePe was founded in 2015 by former Flipkart executives Sameer Nigam, Rahul Chari, and Burzin Engineer. The fintech company has over 400 million registered users and is the market leader in Unified Payments Interface transactions. In terms of monthly UPI volumes, the company commands a 47% market share.
“PhonePe is the #1 transaction platform in India with an impressive moat of robust tech capabilities,” said Gopal Srinivasan, Chairman and Managing Director, TVS Capital Funds. “Its strong growth in financial services across payments, insurance and lending with unopened doors to two massive opportunities through ONDC and Appstore, were key reasons in our investment thesis.”
Speaking on the fundraise, Sameer Nigam, CEO and Founder of PhonePe said,
PhonePe expanded into financial services in 2017, allowing customers to buy gold, insurance, and mutual funds on its platform, in addition to making bill and utility payments. In December, the company shifted its domicile from Singapore to India after its complete hive-off from Flipkart.
Recently, PhonePe launched a cross-border payments service that will allow users to pay foreign merchants using UPI. As of now, the feature is available in the UAE, Singapore, Mauritius, Nepal, and Bhutan.
