Paytm to raise $1.1 bn from anchor investors in the largest-ever IPO anchor round

IPO-bound financial services firm, Paytm, has onboarded large institutional investors including Blackrock, CPPIB and GIC for its anchor round in which it will raise Rs 8,250 crore or $1.1 billion, sources privy to the development confirmed to Business Today.In.
 
The company’s anchor round, at $1.1 billion will see participation from the world’s top pension funds, long-only funds as well as sovereign wealth funds like Blackrock, CPPIB and GIC, said a source.
 
The Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led firm, as per sources, has garnered interest from large blue-chip global tech funds for its $2.4 billion-IPO anchor round, which will close on November 3. As per sources, Paytm’s anchor round is set to see some mega investors making one of their first investments in India through their tech focused funds. The company will list on stock exchanges on November 8.
 
It is set to raise Rs 18,300 crore ($2.4 billion) from the markets through a fresh issue of Rs 8,300 crore and an offer for sale of Rs 10,000 crore. The price band has been kept in the range of Rs 2,080-2,150 and it will open for bid on November 8 and will close on November 10.
 
Paytm is already the largest payments platform in India based on the number of consumers, number of merchants, number of transactions and revenue, as per RedSeer report. As per the company’s RHP, Paytm’s total user base has increased to 337 million registered consumers and over 21.8 million registered merchants, as of June 30, 2021.  Paytm’s GMV has increased from Rs 69,700 crore in the three months ended June 30, 2020 to Rs 1,46,900 crore in the three months ended June 30, 2021.
 
Paytm’s financial services bet has taken off — revenue from operations is up by 62 per cent year-on-year while its contribution margin positive is up by 85 per cent year-on-year for Q1FY22. In fact, payments and financial services alone contribute to almost 80 per cent of its revenue.
 
Additionally, the company’s lending vertical that also offers Paytm Postpaid (Buy Now Pay Later) has seen a huge uptick as the company disbursed 1.4 million loans in Q1FY22 and 2.8 million loans in Q2FY22, as per the RHP. It also has a stronghold in the offline merchants space through its Paytm devices. The company had 947K devices deployed as of Jun 2021 and 1,280K devices deployed as of Sep 2021.
 
The company is not focussing on UPI alone. Instead it has built a multi-stack payment architecture through the payment options it offers — Paytm Wallet, Paytm UPI, Paytm Postpaid (Buy Now, Pay Later), credit cards/debit cards, Paytm PoS, All-in-One QR code, Soundbox among others.

Also read: Paytm IPO issue size at Rs 18,300 cr, to open on Nov 8; check out price band, bid details and more
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