Paytm’s Rs 2000-cr funding deal likely in next few weeks

The post Alibaba-backed Paytm in talks to raise US0M from Temasek, GIC, others: Reports appeared first on e27.

Sources said the deal with all these investors would likely close within the next 10 days.

The deal may substantially alter the ownership structure of Paytm and its parent, said the report. The fresh cash will be used for the company’s three verticals – the payments business, the planned payments bank and the e-commerce business. It is expected to initially mirror parent One97’s shareholding.

This round will see Paytm’s valuation more than doubling to $5 billion.

The deal, when it completes, will be the largest funding round surpassing Snapdeal’s $200 million funding and grocery start-up Big Basket’s $150 million. Sharma could not be reached for a comment.

Last September, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group and its affiliate Ant Financial Services (Alipay) made a strategic investment of US$680 million in the firm.

Sources said the company was hoping for a merger with Alibaba.

Paytm has also spun off its e-commerce business even as existing investor Alibaba is trying to enter India either independently or through an acquisition.

“A lot of banking innovation will be driven by fintech companies especially in the micro payments or offline payments space, and a seamless experience can happen eventually with an integrated play between hardware companies and payment services providers”, said Vineet Toshniwal, former managing director at Equirus Capital, who is now in the process of setting up a start-up in the financial services sector.

At a recent TechCircle event, Sharma had said that there was a perpetual investor interest in Paytm and that he declined investment offers on a regular basis. After carving out a separate ecommerce entity for running payments and other businesses as separate units, Paytm is now looking to get funds – and at a massive scale – for its latest subsidiary.

Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma had in June expressed hope that the company would launch its payments bank in August.

While online retail major Flipkart reported GMV of less than Rs. 2,000 crore, Snapdeal’s GMV came at around Rs. 600 crore.