PhonePe bags $100M from General Atlantic; total fundraise moves to $850M

As part of an ongoing $1-billion fundraise, PhonePe has received a tranche of $100 million from General Atlantic. This infusion takes the fintech firm's total fundraise till date to $850 million.

Earlier, in January this year, General Atlantic had invested $350 million in PhonePe, as part of the fundraise.

So far, the Walmart-backed firm has received $550 million from General Atlantic and co-investors; $200 million from Walmart, and $100 million from Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global, and TVS Capital Funds.

The ongoing round values the startup at $12 billion.

In a press statement issued earlier, the Bengaluru-headquartered digital payments firm had outlined its plans to deploy the funds to build and scale new businesses such as insurance, wealth management, lending, stockbroking, ONDC-based shopping, and account aggregators. The fundraise will also be used to support offerings such as UPI Lite and credit on UPI, said the company.

In December 2022, Walmart-owned ecommerce company Flipkart and digital payments unicorn PhonePe had announced full ownership separation as the latter prepares for an IPO.

The PhonePe Group, founded by Sameer Nigam, Rahul Chari and Burzin Engineer, was acquired by the Flipkart Group in 2016. Flipkart had later partially hived off PhonePe as a separate entity in 2020.

PhonePe, which holds 50% market share by value in UPI payments, hit an annualised total payment value run rate of $1 trillion in March 2023. The company claims to have over 450 million registered users.

Meanwhile, General Atlantic, which has backed a number of Indian firms including Jio, BillDesk, BYJU'S, Amagi, NoBroker and Unacademy over the past decade, plans to deploy at least $2 billion to $3 billion in India over the next five to seven years, according to a report by TechCrunch.