Walmart’s shareholding in fintech decacorn PhonePe has decreased from 89% to 85% following the fintech’s $1 billion fundraise, according to the US retail giant’s regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
During the three months ending April 30, 2023, Walmart received $500 million in new equity funding for its majority-owned subsidiary, PhonePe, reducing its ownership from approximately 89% as of January 31, 2023, to around 85%.
PhonePe, which recently separated from ecommerce giant Flipkart and relocated its operations to India, has raised $850 million in primary capital since the beginning of 2023, reaching decacorn status.
Among the investors, General Atlantic and its co-investors have injected $550 million into the fintech decacorn, while Walmart, Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global, and TVS Capital Funds have invested around $300 million.
In late May, General Atlantic and its co-investors added $100 million to PhonePe’s latest funding round.
Founded in December 2015 by Sameer Nigam, Rahul Chari, and Burzin Engineer, PhonePe boasts over 400 million registered users.
The fintech aims to utilize the funds to enhance its infrastructure, including the development of data centers, as well as to scale its financial services offerings. It also plans to launch new business verticals such as lending, stockbroking, ONDC-based shopping, and account aggregators in the upcoming quarters.
In April, PhonePe dominated the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) segment, accounting for 421.6 crore transactions worth INR 7.10 lakh crore. The fintech held a 50.47% share of UPI transaction value and 47.39% of transaction count during that month.
To further strengthen its payments and UPI vertical, PhonePe recently introduced UPI Lite, a simplified version of the payments network that allows users to make payments below INR 200 from their accounts without entering a PIN.
Additionally, PhonePe, along with CRED and Razorpay, reportedly participated in a recent deposition by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, discussing the rising incidents of cybercrimes in the country.
