Paytm parent raises over ₹4,700 cr from Alipay, SVF, T Rowe Price

One 97 Communications Ltd, which operates digital payments company Paytm, has raised ₹4,724 crore (around $660 million) from Alipay Singapore E-commerce Private Ltd, SVF Panther (Cayman) Ltd, T Rowe Price Growth Stock Fund Inc. and others.

The board of directors of One 97 Communications Ltd has recently approved the allotment of 2,592,472 equity shares at $254.58 a share, according to a regulatory filing that has been accessed by business intelligence platform Tofler.

Alipay Singapore E-commerce invested ₹1,433 crore, SVF Panther (Cayman) put in ₹1,430 crore and T Rowe Price Growth Stock Fund invested ₹704 crore.

In November, Paytm raised $1 billion in a financing round in which existing shareholders such as Ant Financial and SoftBank Vision Fund and new investors including T. Rowe Price Associates Inc., took part.

This increased the valuation of the Noida-headquartered company from the $15 billion it was valued at in August this year to $16 billion.

Paytm competes with companies such as Google Pay and PhonePe in the highly competitive digital payments domain in India.

Once the clear market leader, the payments platform has now fallen behind its two rivals on unified payments interface, or UPI, transactions.

The fresh investments will be used to grow the payments and financial services business, Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma said in November. One97 Communications plans to invest ₹10,000 crore over the next three years to acquire more customers and merchants in small towns.

Paytm is believed to have been trying raise funds from the beginning of this year amid mounting losses.

For the financial year ended March 2019, One97 Communications reported a more than twofold increase in losses on account of higher expenses and lower revenue growth. The loss stood at ₹3,960 crore, compared with a loss of ₹1,490 crore reported a year ago.

The company’s revenue in FY19 increased to ₹3,050 crore from ₹2,987.41 crore a year ago.