Flipkart Pvt. Ltd., the holding company of the e-commerce marketplace Flipkart and the digital payment platform PhonePe, has infused a total of US $ 90 million in the two entities.
This takes the investment up to US $ 982 million in the latter and US $ 1.88 billion in Flipkart, according to regulatory filings in Singapore.
The decision for fund infusion was made last week and comes at a time when PhonePe is up against the up and coming WhatsApp Pay, which is working with Reliance Jio and has successfully conducted a pilot test through JioMart, Reliance’s e-commerce marketplace.
The likes of Amazon and Flipkart are losing more money than gaining with every delivery in the country during this time and Flipkart’s top line has been dented more than 90 per cent during the pandemic.
Both e-commerce giants in the country credit a huge share of their revenue to smartphones and apparels, categories that are not considered essentials at this time and are facing restrictions.
PhonePe is also battling against other UPI platforms in the country like Google Pay, Amazon Pay and Paytm. As its founders try to raise independent capital, their efforts are foiled by Walmart’s bullishness and a steep valuation ask by PhonePe.
The payment platform has introduced many new features in the past week in spite of which their transactions have declined by about 35 per cent.
