The HT-Mint Asia Leadership Summit took place in Singapore on 6th September. All the leading businesses and startups were present in the summit. CEO and founder of Paytm, Vijay Shekhar Sharma announced during the summit that he will be starting an initial public offering(IPO) in the next 22-24 months.
The e-commerce and digital payments giant last disclosed that they had raised $300 million from Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway in 2018. The valuation skyrocketed as the price reached $15 billion.
One97 Communication is the parent company for Paytm, and it is India’s most valuable unicorn and privately held startup whose valuation is $1 billion or more. This unicorn startup is backed up by Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank Vision Fund and Alibaba Group’s Ant Financial.
Vijay believes that a roadmap is essential for this before public listing as he wants his firm to generate more cash before he enters the public market. He mentioned that “I make money, but I’m looking for free cash, and then I’ll list.”
He also mentioned the fact that India is going through a “golden age of entrepreneurship” and considers himself “lucky” to be a part of such a huge change. According to him, this time is great for small businesses as they make a huge amount of money for the company shareholders and provide excellent solutions for the problems in India.
The startup culture of India has grown significantly, drawing attention from both local as well as foreign investors in recent years. Indian startups have raised around $3.9 billion in the first half of 2019, which shows a rise in the investor’s confidence, Flipkart’s $16 billion exits to Walmart and the post-election optimism.
