Paytm has announced that SoftBank has invested in their parent company One97 Communications Limited.
The $1.6 billion commitment is said to be the single largest funding round from a single investor in India.Crowdfund Insider reported this past week that Paytm was discussing an investment from SoftBank with a possible $1.9 billion investment withe a valuation of $8 billion. SoftBank is expected to take a seat on the Paytm board.
Paytm is India-based One97’s flagship brand and is India’s largest digital goods and mobile commerce platform. Paytm is also a leading payment solutions provider to e-commerce merchants using its RBI approved semi-closed wallet.
Management said they were excited to announce that Japan’s leading Internet and telecom conglomerate SoftBank had invested in One97 Communications Limited. The investment will obviously help to fuel platform growth and its current trajectory to become the country’s payment ecosystem, expand their user base. Paytm intends on building out a suite of financial services for their customers.
Paytm posted on their site;
“We have been going from strength to strength in our payments division. Our zero cost QR Code-based payment solution has been adopted by millions of merchants and is now synonymous to digital payments in India. Going forward, we will continue to innovate and expand into new online and offline use-cases so we can serve you better, and that’s a promise.”
Based in New Delhi, One97 employs more than 4,500 people with offices in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, Chennai and Kolkata with global presence in Africa, Europe, Middle East and Southeast Asia. They are backed by investors like Alibaba Group, Ant Financial (AliPay), SAIF Partners, Mediatek, Sapphire Venture and Silicon Valley Bank.
