Walmart-backed Indian fintech PhonePe files for IPO of around $1.3 bln- report

[cryptoenthusiast]

Walmart-owned Indian payments firm PhonePe has filed draft papers with Indian regulators for an initial public offering seeking to raise about 12,000 crore rupees ($1.35 billion), Moneycontrol reported on Wednesday.

Microsoft and Tiger Global are also seeking to participate in the offering for sale, which will involve a combined dilution of a roughly 10% stake, Moneycontrol reported, citing multiple industry sources.

PhonePe is seeking a confidential filing route for its IPO– a method that allows companies to not disclose sensitive information when filing for an IPO.

PhonePe, along with Alphabet’s Google Pay, is among the largest players in India’s unified payments interface market– a nationalized payments network.

PhonePe and Google run apps allowing users to make nearly instant payments through UPI, and have also expanded into providing financial services– such as lending and insurance– in recent years.

PhonePe was launched in 2016 and had about 530 million registered users as of early-2024– representing roughly a third of India’s population.