Walmart-Backed Indian Fintech PhonePe Inches Closer To $1B Capital Goal With Latest Fundraise

Walmart Inc WMT backed Indian fintech platform PhonePe raised $200 million in primary capital from the U.S. retailer at a pre-money valuation of $12 billion.
This new funding is part of PhonePe’s ongoing fundraising of up to $1 billion in the capital following its domicile shift to India in 2022.
PhonePe has raised $650 million from several global investors with this tranche.
PhonePe expects further investments.
PhonePe plans to deploy these funds to build and scale new businesses like Insurance, Wealth Management, Lending, Stockbroking, ONDC-based Shopping, and Account Aggregators.
The fund will also help PhonePe turbo-charge the next wave of growth for UPI payments in India, including UPI lite and Credit on UPI.
At a $12 billion valuation, PhonePe is India’s most valuable fintech startup that competes with Alphabet Inc GOOG GOOGL Google Pay, and Paytm.
PhonePe dominates transactions on UPI, a network built by a coalition of retail banks in India. UPI is the most popular way Indians transact online, TechCrunch reports.
Industry experts see PhonePe becoming a bank, which justifies the lofty valuation.
PhonePe projects revenue of $325 million for CY22 and $504 million for CY23, according to a valuation report. The startup does not expect to turn EBIDTA positive, a key profitability metric, until CY25.
Price Action: WMT shares closed lower by 0.97% at $138.28 on Thursday.
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