PhonePe Nears $1-Billion Target After General Atlantic's $100-Million Round

PhonePe Pvt. has raised $100 million, or around Rs 820 crore, in additional funding from an existing investor, General Atlantic Service Co., at a pre-money valuation of $12 billion, or about Rs 99,000 crore.

This is the fifth installment of a fundraising effort by the payments app to raise $1 billion. The latest fund infusion brings the total to $850 million.

It had earlier raised $200 million from majority investor Walmart; $100 million from Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global Management LLC, and TVS Capital Funds; $350 million in a round led by General Atlantic in January; and $100 million from General Atlantic in April.

"This latest tranche brings the total investment from General Atlantic and its co-investors to $550 million. The investment reaffirms General Atlantic’s conviction in PhonePe's business and growth potential," it said in a statement.

PhonePe, in earlier statements on the fundraiser, had said it plans to deploy funds from the current exercise to build and scale new businesses like insurance, wealth management, lending, stockbroking, and account aggregators.

PhonePe forayed into hyperlocal e-commerce via its ONDC-based shopping app, Pincode. The app marks its second consumer-facing platform.

The fundraising exercise comes after PhonePe announced that it had changed its domicile to India and fully separated from Flipkart—a move that is synonymous with a company looking to list in India. Founder Sameer Nigam, speaking to BQ Prime, had earlier said that an IPO is at least a couple of years away.