Digital payments startup MobiKwik files for Rs 1,900 Cr IPO

Digital payments startup MobiKwik has filed for an initial public offering to raise Rs 1,900 crore, its draft red herring prospectus showed.

The Rs 1,900 crore includes a fresh issue worth Rs 1,500 crore, and the remaining component - Rs 400 crore - will be secondary share sales where existing investors can sell their stakes in the startup.

Founded in 2009 by husband and wife Bipin Preet Singh and Upasana Taku, MobiKwik had recently raised around $20 million from the UAE's sovereign wealth fund, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. The fundraise valued MobiKwik at around $700 million, according to a Registrar of Companies (RoC) filing by the startup.

Its IPO could hit the markets by September, a PTI story had said.

Shareholders who could put their stakes up for sale in the startup include American Express, Bajaj Finance, Cisco Systems, Sequoia Capital India, and Tree Line Asia Master Fund, among others.

The Gurugram-based startup had told YourStory in February that it was gearing up for an IPO this year, after clocking its highest-ever revenue in March 2020. But the pandemic pressured its bottomline, and the startup had to lower its revenue expectations to around Rs 400 crore, and a loss between Rs 40 crore and Rs 50 crore, Upasana told YourStory in the video interview.

She added that MobiKwik was eyeing profitability in fiscal 2022.

MobiKwik's filing comes against the backdrop of the expected initial public offerings of prominent companies such as Zomato, Flipkart, and Paytm. Food delivery giant Zomato will open its books for subscription on July 14, and close on July 16, as per updates by the company.

In March, MobiKwik got some bad press after an alleged data theft, which provoked the Reserve Bank of India to order a forensic audit on the company. It was reported that the data of around 10 million of its customers were stolen by hackers.

The startup, however, denied the data breach in the DRHP, saying forensic audit experts reported that there was no unauthorised access of its logs or data during the review period.

"Any such actual or perceived breach of our security could interrupt our operations; result in our systems or services being unavailable; result in improper disclosure of or access to data resulting in legal or financial exposure and loss of user confidence and reputation; and adversely affect our business and results of operations," MobiKwik said in its prospectus.

ICICI Securities, BNP Paribas, Jefferies, and Credit Suisse are among the bookrunners for the startup's IPO.