PhonePe
Funding History
| Walmart Growth Round (independence funding) · 12/2020 | $5.5B |
|---|---|
| General Atlantic Growth Round (1st tranche) · 01/2023 | $12.0B |
| Pre-IPO ESOP Liquidity Round · 10/2025 | $14.5B |
Overview
PhonePe is an Indian digital payments and financial services company headquartered in Bengaluru, founded in December 2015 by Sameer Nigam, Rahul Chari, and Burzin Engineer, three ex-Flipkart executives. Flipkart acquired PhonePe in 2016 for a reported $20 million.
Walmart's 2018 majority acquisition of Flipkart brought PhonePe under the Walmart umbrella. PhonePe fully separated from Flipkart into an independent entity in December 2022, backed by a dedicated $700 million capital infusion from Walmart in 2020 that gave it its own long-term growth capital.
The company's core product is a UPI-based mobile payments app, and it has since expanded into insurance, lending, wealth management (Share.Market stockbroking), an alternative Android app store (Indus Appstore), and a hyperlocal commerce app (Pincode).
As of January 2026, PhonePe holds roughly 46% of India's UPI transaction volume, and it reported a team size of 12,558 employees as of April 2026. The company filed an Updated Draft Red Herring Prospectus (UDRHP) with India's SEBI on January 21, 2026 for a planned Offer-for-Sale-only IPO, though the listing timeline was reportedly paused/deferred in March 2026 amid market conditions.
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