Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal in talks to invest $100M-150M in PhonePe: Report

Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal is in talks to infuse around $100 million - $150 million in digital payments and financial service startup PhonePe as part of an ongoing financing round.

If finalised, it would be among the largest individual investments in a new-age entity, The Economic Times reported.

In 2018, Flipkart's co-founder Sachin Bansal had invested $100 million, or Rs 740 crore, in ride-hailing company Ola.

The final investment amount is yet to be decided, but talks are at an advanced stage and likely to close soon, the report said.

YourStory has not independently verified this report.

Walmart-owned Flipkart's existing shareholders, Bansal, Tiger Global, Qatar Investment Authority, China’s Tencent, and Microsoft, were expected to buy a stake in PhonePe as the company put together a new ownership structure.

Walmart continues to be the largest investor in PhonePe with around 70% stake.

Last month, PhonePe raised $100 million in additional funding from Tiger Global, Ribbit Capital, and TVS Capital Funds at a pre-money valuation of $12 billion 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. 

PhonePe competes with digital payment providers such as Google Pay, Amazon Pay, Paytm, and WhatsApp Pay on the UPI network.

Founded in 2015 by former Flipkart executives Sameer Nigam, Rahul Chari, and Burzin Engineer, PhonePe claims to have over 400 million registered users.

For FY22, PhonePe reported a net loss of Rs 2,014 crore, which widened from Rs 1,729 crore in FY21, while revenue from operations surged to Rs 1,646 crore. The expenses also ballooned to Rs 3,705.6 crore. On a unit level, PhonePe spent Rs 2.25 to earn a rupee in FY22.

The company aims to make its core business profitable in FY23. 

While PhonePe is valued at $12 billion, its listed rival Paytm is trading at a market capitalisation of $4.24 billion. The Vijay Shekhar Sharma-founded fintech company also reported a net loss of Rs 2,325 crore for FY22, but its revenue surged to Rs 3,892.40 crore, higher than PhonePe's.