PhonePe Transitions to Public Limited Company Ahead of IPO
PhonePe, a prominent digital payments platform, is gearing up for a $15 billion valuation with its upcoming initial public offering (IPO) and has officially transitioned from a private entity to a public limited company.
In a recent regulatory filing to the Registrar of Companies (RoC), PhonePe stated, “The members are hereby informed that, as one of the prerequisites for the process of initial public offering, the company is required to convert into a public limited company under the Companies Act, 2013.”
The company’s name will now change from “PhonePe Private Limited” to “PhonePe Limited.”
Importantly, PhonePe has made history as the first Indian firm to change its domicile from abroad (specifically Singapore) back to India. In 2022, the Walmart-owned company successfully completed this process, paying more than Rs 8,000 crore (approximately $1 billion) in taxes along the way.
Reports suggest that PhonePe intends to kick off its IPO process in the first week of March. The company has enlisted the expertise of advisers such as Kotak Mahindra Capital, JP Morgan, Citi, and Morgan Stanley to guide them through this phase.
Under the leadership of Sameer Nigam, PhonePe secured $100 million in December 2023, part of a larger funding round totalling $1 billion, with a pre-money valuation set at $12 billion. Walmart continues to hold the majority stake, with additional prominent investors including Microsoft, General Atlantic, Tiger Global, Ribbit Capital, TVS Capital, Tencent, and the Qatar Investment Authority.
As a leading player in the UPI ecosystem, PhonePe maintains over 47% market share based on transaction volume. The company reported revenues exceeding Rs 5,000 crore in FY24 and managed to decrease its losses by 28.6%, bringing them down to Rs 1,996 crore within the same timeframe.
On Thursday, another significant fintech entity, Razorpay, also made the move to become a public limited company, as exclusively reported by Startup Superb. Both PhonePe and Razorpay will now join the ranks of other publicly listed companies such as Paytm and MobiKwik, while Pine Labs is also preparing for its public listing in the near future.