Paytm may raise about Rs 2000 crore at $5 billion valuation

One97 Communications-led online payments service Paytm is in initial talks to raise $300 million (Rs 1995.82 crore) funds from its investors including Taiwan's MediaTek, the Goldman Sachs Group, Temasek Holdings Pte, media reports said.

Besides existing investors like Chinese e-commerce Alibaba Group and SAIF Partners, Taiwan's Foxconn and Singapore's sovereign fund GIC Pte may also participate in this round of fund raising, said a Mint report.

The deal may take two months, the report said. With the latest round of funding, Paytm's valuation may more than double from its current valuation to $5 billion (Rs 33,263.75 crore) as against $2 billion (Rs 13,305.5 crore) in May 2015.

Mint quoted Alibaba Group's spokesperson, saying, "Paytm is an important strategic partner of Alibaba Group and Ant Financials and we will continue to support and work closely with Paytm. We continue to work closely with Paytm as we have seen tremendous result of our strategic partnership since Ant’s investment in Paytm in February 2015." 

If the deal goes through, it will be the highest amount any startup has raised in India in this year. The fresh round of funding comes at a time when the company is expected to start its payments bank operations in the country. In May, Paytm co-founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma had said that the company was slated to kick off its payments bank operations by August. However, so far, there's no word on the launch yet. 

Paytm received an in-principle approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to set up a payments bank in August last year along with nearly 10 other entities.

After the the launch of the bank, Paytm will become an end-to-end payment financial services company with banking and mobile wallet services.