DST may fund Flipkart’s Paytm rival PhonePe

BENGALURU: A set of marquee investors like Israeli-Russian billionaire Yuri Milner’s DST Global, Ribbit Capital, Falcon Edge, Green Oaks and China’s Hillhouse Capital have held discussions with PhonePe to invest in its independent fund-raise that is expected to be $1 billion in size. These investors are looking to back Walmart-owned Flipkart’s payments platform and have held multiple rounds of talks with the Bengaluru-based company, said three sources familiar with the development.
The valuation at which PhonePe finally agrees to raise the capital remains a critical condition for the talks to go through. PhonePe, which recently crossed 3-billion-transactions landmark on its platform, is believed to be looking at a valuation in the range of $8 -12 billion. As reported by in May, Tiger Global and Tencent, which have previously backed Flipkart, continue to be involved in the investment negotiations. PhonePe is on an annual gross transaction value run-rate of more than $90 billion.