India’s payment giant Paytm has closed its latest round of funding as it looks to deploy RS 10,000 Cr ($1.4bn) to increase financial inclusion to more users in the country.
The capital was supplied by previous backers Ant Financial, Discovery Capital and Softbank Vision Fund. T. Rowe Price Associates also joined the round alongside a number of other first-time backers.
According to reports in the media, Paytm secured $1bn in this Series G round, which values the business at $16bn.
The reports state T. Rowe Price, Discovery Capital and D1 Capital supplied $600m to the round while Softbank invested $200m and Ant Financial gave $600m. Last year, the payments company received $445m in a funding round from Softbank and Alibaba.
Paytm’s next phase of growth will see it expand its services online and increase access to lending, insurance, investments and stockbroking.
The FinTech initially began is journey by supporting digital payments through QR-code technology. It now supports 2,000 towns and cities across India and 500 million consumers.
Earlier in the year, it was reported the payments company was looking to close a $2bn round.
Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma said, “At Paytm, we are committed to bringing half a billion Indians to the mainstream economy by onboarding them in the formal financial ecosystem. This new investment by our current and new investors is a reaffirmation of our commitment to serve Indians with new-age financial services.”
Not everything is plain sailing for the FinTech. In the financial year ending March 2019, the company lost $549m.
India’s largest segment in FinTech is payments and remittance. Of the £16.5bn to be invested into the country’s FinTech space since 2014, 70.9% went to payment companies.
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