One97 Communications Ltd, which operates mobile wallet Paytm, will invest close to Rs 5,000 crore ($769 million) in its payments business over the next three years, media reports quoted founder and chief executive Vijay Shekhar Sharma as saying.
The investment will not go into its e-commerce business, Sharma told The Times of India.
“As a company, we have invested the most and will continue to be the largest investor (in digital payments) in the country,†Sharma told The Economic Times in an interview.
Last year, the Noida-based company had separated its e-commerce and payments businesses under Paytm E-Commerce Pvt. Ltd and Paytm Payments Bank Ltd, respectively.
In May this year, Paytm Payments Bank Ltd went live on a select, invite-only basis.
In June, Paytm E-Commerce received $200 million from Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba and venture capital firm SAIF Partners.
In May this year, Paytm raised $1.4 billion (about Rs 9,000 crore) from Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp in the largest funding round from a single investor in India. As part of the deal, SoftBank joined long-time Chinese partner Alibaba Group as a major shareholder in Paytm and got a seat on the Indian firm’s board.
Media reports put the value of the company at around $7-9 billion, the second-highest among Indian consumer Internet companies after e-commerce company Flipkart.
One97 Communications was valued at $7 billion when early investor Nikhil Vora sold his 0.35% stake to Alibaba recently. This was a substantial jump from the $4.8 billion valuation at the time of Paytm’s fundraise from Taiwanese chipmaker Mediatek in August last year.
