Binny Bansal, the co-founder of the Indian e-commerce major Flipkart is in talks with the fintech decacorn PhonePe to invest $100-150 million in the company. According to a report by the Economic Times (ET), if the deal gets finalised, then it will be one of the largest individual investments in the Indian start-up ecosystem.
Prior to him, Sachin Bansal, the other co-founder of Flipkart invested $100 million (Rs 740 crore) in the Indian ride-hailing start-up Ola.
The Indian fintech firm PhonePe raised $350 million from the United States (US) based venture capital (VC) firm General Atlantic in February. The company achieved $12 billion in a post-money valuation and turned into a decacorn. According to a report by Moneycontrol, the company is now the most highly-valued fintech start-up in India.
It also raised $100 million (Rs 828 crore) recently from new investors like Ribbit Capital and TVS Capital Funds at a pre-money valuation of $12 million. Its existing investor Tiger Global also joined the round.
"I would like to thank Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global and TVS Capital Funds for reposing their faith in us. We are privileged to have a great set of leading global investors, both existing and new, who believe in our mission of building massive technology platforms to bring at-scale financial and digital inclusion in India," PhonePe CEO and Founder Sameer Nigam said.
"We both believe that better money makes life better. PhonePe’s relentless pursuit of this principle in serving consumers and businesses all across India is a mission to live for," Micky Malka, the founder of Ribbit Capital, said.
In 2018, Walmart took ownership of PhonePe when it acquired Flipkart. Till now it owns the majority stake (70 per cent) in the company. Last year, PhonePe marked its separation from Flipkart.
The company recently re-domiciled to India from Singapore. It took its office in Bengaluru.