Often heralded as India’s answer to PayPal, the Indian payments start-up Paytm is backed by some of the biggest names in tech.
Last month, it announced $2bn in fundraising, half in equity and half in debt, from stakeholders including Alibaba-backed fintech Ant Financial and Japan’s SoftBank, which together own about 60 per cent of the company. Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Paytm’s founder, declared that the company is now worth $16bn, making it India’s highest valued start-up.
In an interview with the Financial Times, he said that everything was moving in the right direction, arguing that he had cut costs by 10 per cent in the past six months. “We see ourselves on a healthy path,” he added.