NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Thursday, February 9, 2017

To help boost Paytm’s e-commerce business, Alibaba will reportedly be making an investment of $200 million which will give Paytm a valuation of about $1 billion. Alipay, the payments affiliate of Alibaba, and investment firm SAIF Partners have also participated in the deal, reportedly.

The funding round will take the stake of Alibaba and its affiliate Ant Financial in Paytm E-Commerce, an entity newly created by One97 Communications Ltd to house the online retail business, to more than 50 per cent from 42 per cent, the two people said on condition of anonymity.

Paytm’s parent company One97 Communications Ltd was valued at $5 billion the last time it raised about $60 million from new investor Mediatek in 2016.

Paytm is expected to spin off the e-commerce business into a new mobile application and a separate website this month, Paytm officials said. The new platform will be named PaytmMall—inspired by Alibaba’s T-mall in China. The existing Paytm app will continue to have a link to the commerce business.

Paytm, which started out as a mobile payments and mobile recharge business, today ranks among the top three consumer Internet companies in the country. The company has aggressively built its e-commerce marketplace during the last two years by selling apparel, footwear, smartphones, bus tickets and movie tickets.