Last month, Indian digital payments giant Paytm confirmed investment from Berkshire Hathway, without revealing the corpus of the investment.
The management board of One97 Communications, Paytm’s parent firm, has approved the ₹2,180 crore ($300 million) investment from US-based Berkshire Hathway, according to the documents from Registrar of Companies.
The recent investment is expected to propel Paytm over the $10 billion valuation. It was valued at $7 billion after it raised $1.4 billion from Softbank in May 2017.
In lieu of the investment, Berkshire will subscribe to 1.7 million equity shares of Paytm.
It is to be noted that this investment in Paytm, marks Berkshire’s first investment in an Indian company.
Berkshire Hathway joins Alibaba, Softbank, and SAIF Partners, to be amongst Paytm’s prominent investors.
The board has also resolved that Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma, chief finance officer Madhur Deora, and senior vice president of finance Vikas Garg, were responsible for negotiating the deal for the digital payments giant.
As part of the deal, Todd Combs, investment manager, Berkshire Hathaway has joined Paytm’s board of directors, which also includes Pallavi Shroff and Mark Schwartz as independent directors.
The rising investor confidence in Paytm is a testament to the spectacular growth achieved by the Indian digital payments unicorn. Paytm has forayed into different verticals and has also expanded its footprint in the international market.
Recently, over 5 million Paytm merchants started accepting UPI transactions. Also, earlier this month Paytm forayed into mutual fund investments, when it launched Paytm Money.
Last month, One97 Communications and Alibaba-owned AGTech invested ₹110 crores in a mobile gaming startup Gamepind.
In July, Paytm entered the Japanese digital payments market, when it partnered with Softbank and Yahoo Japan’s joint venture PayPay Corporation.
The latest investment is further expected to boost Paytm’s expansion plans, leveraging the vast experience and network of the Berkshire Hathway.