(L-R) Rahul Chari and Sameer Nigam, cofounders, PhonePe.Mumbai: Sameer Nigam and Rahul Chari, co-founders of PhonePe, sold shares worth ₹3,937.3 crore (around $430 million) to US-based private equity firm General Atlantic in September 2025, showed customary filings by the digital payments firm ahead of its likely initial share sale in April.
As reported by ET, General Atlantic made a secondary transaction worth $600 million in PhonePe ahead of its initial public offering (IPO), making it the US private equity fund’s largest single investment in an Indian company.
Employees also sold their vested Esops to General Atlantic in this round. Including this, General Atlantic has deployed about $1.15 billion in PhonePe across multiple rounds, taking its stake to 8.9 per cent.
The Walmart-owned digital payments firm PhonePe has filed an updated draft red herring prospectus (UDRHP) for its IPO Thursday, targeting a stock market debut in April this year.
The IPO will be entirely an offer for sale of 50 million shares by existing shareholders, leading to partial exits by Walmart and full exits by early investors Microsoft and Tiger Global.
Walmart, through its unit WM Digital Commerce Holdings, plans to sell up to 45.9 million shares, while Microsoft and Tiger Global will divest 3.67 million and 1 million shares, respectively.
General Atlantic would not participate in the OFS.
Revenue Climbs
The company reported a 22 per cent year-on-year increase in revenue to ₹3,918 crore for the six months ended September 2025. Its net loss widened to ₹1,444 crore from ₹1,203 crore a year earlier, driven by a sharp rise in expenses. Revenue from the payments business, including consumer and merchant payments, grew 15 per cent to ₹3,405 crore during the period, compared with ₹2,961 crore in the corresponding period last year.
The contribution of payments to overall operating revenue, however, declined to 86.92 per cent from 92.32 per cent, as other verticals scaled up. The UDRHP showed that revenue contribution from lending and insurance distribution rose to 11.55 per cent from 6.76 per cent a year ago, with revenue more than doubling to ₹452 crore. Total expenses during the April-September period climbed to ₹6,069.2 crore from ₹4,680 crore a year earlier.
PhonePe was acquired by Walmart as part of its deal with ecommerce major Flipkart. In 2020, Flipkart hived off the payments firm into a separate entity at a valuation of $5.5 billion.
According to the company’s UDRHP, Walmart holds 71.7 per cent stake in PhonePe, followed by General Atlantic. Cofounders Nigam and Chari currently hold 2.5 per cent each.
PhonePe had filed its draft red herring prospectus through the confidential route in September 2024. The company has appointed Kotak Mahindra Capital, JPMorgan India, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley as book-running lead managers for the issue.
In 2022, PhonePe, which was earlier domiciled in Singapore, redomiciled to India, a key legal step for companies to list on Indian stock exchanges.
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