India's mobile commerce company Paytm may get more than $500 million from Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba and Singapore-based Temasek Holdings as per reports by Economics Times. Moreover, if Paytm get this funding the startup may become one of the fastest Indian startups to get past the billion-dollar valuation mark.
As per reports, for making room for these new investors, Chairman and founder of One97 Communications Vijay Shekhar Sharma, is going to dilute his shares for the purpose and talks are at an advanced stage on one of the biggest fund-raising exercises by an Indian startup and an announcement is expected towards January-end that would value the Delhi-based Paytm at $1.5-1.9 billion.
Founded in 2011, with this investment, Paytm will become India's fastest startup to reach the $1 billion mark. Existing investor SAIF Partners will also participate in this funding round, to keep its stake at 40 percent. Speculations also states that Amazon and New York-based Tiger Global also showed interest in investing in Paytm.
Alibaba and Temasek have bid for a stake in the One97 Communications-owned company, which has grown manifold since its launch in 2011, the people cited above said. At least two investors will gain a 25-30% stake for $500 million, some of which will be used for strengthening mobile operations and adding customers.
Paytm was among the first ecommerce companies to move to a mobile-first strategy from an exclusively computer-based one, which is why it's so attractive to investors.
Recently, Paytm had announced its plans to foray into international markets, with pilot countries being Singapore and other South East Asian markets. It appointed crowd-funding website Milaap’s founder Sourabh Sharma to establish its presence in these geographies.
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