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General Atlantic invests another $100 million in PhonePe
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General Atlantic has poured another $100 million in PhonePe, three months after leading a $350 million investment in the Indian fintech startup that has so far raised $750 million as part of the ongoing financing round.
Walmart-backed PhonePe disclosed the investment in a filing with the local regulator on Wednesday. A company spokesperson confirmed the investment. The ongoing round values the Bengaluru-headquartered startup at $12 billion.
At a $12 billion valuation, PhonePe is India's most valuable fintech startup. It competes with Google Pay and Paytm, the latter of which is currently valued at nearly $5 billion.
PhonePe, which completed a full separation from the e-commerce giant Flipkart last year, dominates transactions on UPI, a network built by a coalition of retail banks in India. UPI is the most popular way Indians transact online -- it processes more than 8 billion transactions a month. Google's GPay and PhonePe currently process more than 80% of all UPI transactions.
Seven-year-old PhonePe commands about 50% of all these transactions and it's not slowing down. The company said last week it was on pace to process transactions worth $1 trillion annually.
Walmart, which also owns a majority share in e-commerce giant Flipkart, said earlier this year that the separation of Flipkart and PhonePe was "very analogous to eBay and PayPal, where each of them operating independently can pursue their own initiatives."
The investment comes at a time when PhonePe is aggressively expanding its product offerings. The startup earlier this month launched a hyperlocal commerce app, called Pincode, that is powered by the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), an Indian government initiative striving to democratize the e-commerce landscape by offering a zero-commission platform.
More to follow.
