<p>Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Sharma has made it clear that the company is going ahead with its plan to raise funds from existing investors, led by Alibaba Group in June, and not from new players.<br /><br /></p>.<p>In an interaction with Deccan Herald, Sharma said the company has already got queries from a couple of investors. “Four fresh investors have knocked on my door. But I have declined their offers for now. I am satisfied with my current investors,” he said.<br /><br />The Noida-based wallet company is backed by investors, including Alibaba Group, Saif Partners, Sapphire Venture and Silicon Valley Bank. In September 2015, Alibaba and One97 Communication (Paytm parent’s company) announced that Alibaba and Ant Financial have agreed to make a strategic investment in Paytm. Ant Financial (Alibaba’s payment arm) made its initial investment in Paytm in February 2015.<br /><br />Paytm has disclosed around $700 million in funding from investors that include Alibaba. Ant Financial was supposed to pump in $575 million in two tranches. The company had raised $200 million in March, 2015 in as the first tranche and met the target for the second one. <br /><br />According to some sources, Paytm put up a requirement of a bigger amount of $375 and Alibaba Group agreed to pump in $500 million. <br /><br />If this transaction is through, Alibaba will become the largest stakeholder in One97 Communication, approximately about 40%. The new investment will help the company to grow further payment business. <br /><br />Paytm started its operations in 2010.<br /><br />“We would like to solidfy our existing business and further stregthen out business in the payment segment. This will make the difference and add more customers to our platform,” he said. <br /><br />Paytm was valued at around $2.8 billion during its last funding round in August last year. Besides focussing on exponential growth, the investment will help Paytm further develop its payment ecosystem for which it got a licence in August, 2015. Paytm aims to have 500 million users by 2020.<br /><br />Sharma said the investment from Asian capital is really influencing valuation of Indian startup. “Indian entrepreneurs are taking risks, but they are not finding more investors in seed funding even though a change is there. When it comes to big ticket investments, we have to look at the US. With the arrival of Asian capital from Alibaba and Tencent among others, valuation of Indian companies have gone up,” he said.<br /><br />Alibaba, Foxconn and SoftBank led a $500 million round in Jasper Infotech-owned Snapdeal in the first half of last year. SoftBank held discussions with Paytm for investment recently and that didn't materialise as the Japanese investor wanted Paytm to focus only on its mobile recharge and wallet businesses.<br /><br /></p>
<p>Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Sharma has made it clear that the company is going ahead with its plan to raise funds from existing investors, led by Alibaba Group in June, and not from new players.<br /><br /></p>.<p>In an interaction with Deccan Herald, Sharma said the company has already got queries from a couple of investors. “Four fresh investors have knocked on my door. But I have declined their offers for now. I am satisfied with my current investors,” he said.<br /><br />The Noida-based wallet company is backed by investors, including Alibaba Group, Saif Partners, Sapphire Venture and Silicon Valley Bank. In September 2015, Alibaba and One97 Communication (Paytm parent’s company) announced that Alibaba and Ant Financial have agreed to make a strategic investment in Paytm. Ant Financial (Alibaba’s payment arm) made its initial investment in Paytm in February 2015.<br /><br />Paytm has disclosed around $700 million in funding from investors that include Alibaba. Ant Financial was supposed to pump in $575 million in two tranches. The company had raised $200 million in March, 2015 in as the first tranche and met the target for the second one. <br /><br />According to some sources, Paytm put up a requirement of a bigger amount of $375 and Alibaba Group agreed to pump in $500 million. <br /><br />If this transaction is through, Alibaba will become the largest stakeholder in One97 Communication, approximately about 40%. The new investment will help the company to grow further payment business. <br /><br />Paytm started its operations in 2010.<br /><br />“We would like to solidfy our existing business and further stregthen out business in the payment segment. This will make the difference and add more customers to our platform,” he said. <br /><br />Paytm was valued at around $2.8 billion during its last funding round in August last year. Besides focussing on exponential growth, the investment will help Paytm further develop its payment ecosystem for which it got a licence in August, 2015. Paytm aims to have 500 million users by 2020.<br /><br />Sharma said the investment from Asian capital is really influencing valuation of Indian startup. “Indian entrepreneurs are taking risks, but they are not finding more investors in seed funding even though a change is there. When it comes to big ticket investments, we have to look at the US. With the arrival of Asian capital from Alibaba and Tencent among others, valuation of Indian companies have gone up,” he said.<br /><br />Alibaba, Foxconn and SoftBank led a $500 million round in Jasper Infotech-owned Snapdeal in the first half of last year. SoftBank held discussions with Paytm for investment recently and that didn't materialise as the Japanese investor wanted Paytm to focus only on its mobile recharge and wallet businesses.<br /><br /></p>
