Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding, along with its payments arm, Ant Financial Services Group, had made a strategic investment in mcommerce platform, Paytm, run by One97 Communications. The deal value have been remained undisclosed, however as per the sources Alibaba was investing about $680 million into the payments processor and marketplace. This led Alibaba group’s total investment in Paytm to around $900 million, including previous round of funding by Ant Financial. In Feb this year, Ant Financial had acquired a 25% stake in One97 for an undisclosed amount. As per the new agreement Alibaba and Ant Financial would each hold 20% stake in Paytm and collectively the Alibaba group would have a 40% stake in the company, as per the sources. The stake of Vijay Shekhar Sharma (founder, Paytm) have come down from 26% to 21%, while Saif Partner’s stake is down to 30% from earlier 37% stake. Citibank acted as exclusive financial advisor to Paytm for this transaction. The funding amount will be used to expand its mobile commerce and payment system in India, as well as enhancing its technological offerings and hiring new talents. Founded by Vijay Shekar, One97’s flagship product, Paytm offers mobile wallets that allow consumers to use mobile phones and other handheld devices to pay for purchases. From a mobile payment startup, the company morphed itself into an ecommerce portal to compete with the likes of Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal.
Source: dealcurry.comAlibaba, Ant Financial Invest In Paytm
Industry: Other 2015-11-24
