Recap 2015: Paytm crosses transformational miles

The year 2015 saw this erstwhile mobile recharge company rapidly morph into an e-marketplace major, after China’s Alibaba came calling in twice.

Vijay Shekar Sharma-founded Paytm got catapulted into spotlight after Ant Financial Services, the investment arm of Chinese e-commerce behemoth, took a 25 percent stake in One97 Communications, Paytm’s parent company, for USD 575 million in February 2015. In September, Alibaba Financial Holding further invested USD 600 million, while subsuming some of the earlier investment through Ant, for a 20 percent stake. After adjusting for the subsumed investment, Alibaba through its two entities held 40 percent stake in Paytm.

Alibaba’s strategic investment has given Paytm both financial muscle and business expertise necessary to move into the big league of the e-marketplace segment in India, currently dominated by the likes of Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal. Alibaba is understood to be supporting Paytm to grow rapidly from a start-up into a big business, by helping it manage scale and monetize opportunities successfully and repeatedly.

In a related move that reflected a forward-thinking organization building approach at Paytm, the company inducted into its board a diverse mix including the first woman engineer at Facebook Ruchi Sanghvi, WhatsApp global business head Neeraj Arora and InMobi founder Naveen Tewari. It also roped in Airtel and Samsung veteran Nitin Mishra to head Paytm’s product pipeline for the payments business.

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