Fintech provider Paytm files to raise $2.2B in one of India’s largest tech IPOs

Paytm, one of India’s largest financial technology startups, has submitted paperwork for an initial public offering that is set to raise as much as $2.2 billion.

The documents were filed today with India’s market regulator by One97 Communications Ltd., the company that operates Paytm. The IPO is expected to be one of the largest on record for a tech company in India. Sources told Reuters that the offering could value Paytm at as much as $25 billion.

Half of the shares that will be offered in the IPO are set to come from Paytm and the rest will be sold by existing shareholders. Additionally, the fintech giant may sell another batch of shares via a pre-IPO private funding round that it estimates could raise $268 million. Paytm said it will use the proceeds from the stock sale to make acquisitions, establish more ecosystem partnerships and launch other growth initiatives.

Paytm provides a digital payments platform that enables users to buy groceries, pay utility bills and make other transactions using their mobile devices. Over the last few years, as the popularity of its platform has soared, the company expanded into numerous other sections of the fintech market.

Paytm has a banking license that allows it to provide bank accounts and wealth management tools. The company offers a digital lending service as well, along with insurance products. As Paytm expanded its core fintech feature set over the years, it also moved into a number of areas outside the financial sector including e-commerce and digital advertising. 

“We have created a payments-led super-app, through which we offer our consumers innovative and intuitive digital products and services,” Paytm stated in its newly released IPO document. 

Across its various products, Paytm has about 333 million users. The company also boasts an installed base of 21 million merchants who use its services to accept payments from shoppers.

Paytm recorded a loss of 16.96 billion rupees in its most recent fiscal year, a significant improvement over the 28.42 billion rupees it lost during the previous 12 months. Revenue declined 14.6%, to 28.02 billion rupees. Analysts at Bernstein Research reportedly expect the company to break even in 12 to 18 months.

The news that Paytm is going public comes shortly after Zomato Ltd., India’s largest food delivery startup, held its own IPO. The offering was significantly oversubscribed, drawing bids totaling $46.3 billion as of earlier today, according to Reuters. That’s about 38 times more than what the company was aiming for.

The fintech market where Paytm competes has seen a number of major stock market listings as well over the last few years. One of the most recent was the June IPO of Marqeta Inc., which provides a cloud service that enables banks and other organizations to issue payment cards to their users. Marqeta raised $1.2 billion in the offering by selling just over 45 million shares at $27 apiece.

Photo: Paytm