“I Didn't Raise Money For The First 7 Years. Raising Money Is A Light And Sound Show”

“Investors see who you are, your team. It’s like selling a dream. They don’t give money to your business, they give you the money because you are an incredible guy and have a great team.”

- Arnika Thakur

Company One97 Communications

Business Payments and financial services

Incorporated 2009 (Paytm); 2000 (One97)

Funding till date $3.54 billion

Scale of business

333 million No. of Paytm users

21 million No. of merchants on its platform

₹3,186 crore Paytm’s revenue in FY21, against ₹3,540 crores in the previous year

The One97 family includes Paytm Payments Bank, Paytm Money, Paytm e-commerce, Paytm First Games, and Paytm Insurance

Next what?

₹16,660-crore IPO from One97 Communications

Source: Tracxn

CONTRARY TO BELIEF, Paytm is not an overnight success. The company, which shot to fame post demonetization with its payments app that made digital transactions ubiquitous, has been in the making for more than two decades. Founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma started Paytm’s parent company One97 Communications in early 2000 after he sold his first venture XS Corps, which built content management systems. Paytm was started in late 2009 as a B2C arm of One97. The company, which has received $3.54-billion funding till date, counts SoftBank Vision Fund, Alibaba Group, Ant Financial, and Berkshire Hathaway among its investors. It currently boasts of 333-million users and has moved beyond just digital payments, offering everything — from e-commerce, insurance, gaming to mutual fund investments and wealth management services. In July, One97 Communications filed the offer document for its ₹16,600-crore IPO.