Chinese internet giant Alibaba is setting great store by India when it comes to e-commerce. Alibaba and its financial arm, Ant Financial Services, have invested about $680 million in Patym for a 15 per cent stake.
The Jack Ma founded, Nasdaq-listed Alibaba had entered the B2C marketplace in India by investing in mobile payment and e-commerce firm Paytm through Ant Financial in February this year. Now, it has come in as a new investor along with Ant Financial.
Ant Financial had earlier infused about $575 million for a 25 per cent stake. With the new round, Paytm has raised about $1.2 billion from Alibaba.
Paytm, founded in 2012 by Vijay Shekhar Sharma of One97 Communications, has also bagged a substantial amount from Ratan Tata in April this year. According to CrunchBase, a site that provides data on deals and investments, Ratan Tata has invested about $65 million in the company.
“India is an important emerging market with strong e-commerce potential, and we look forward to partnering with Paytm to deliver innovative products and services to consumers… This investment will further expand Alibaba Group’s global footprint to India’s thriving mobile commerce market,” Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang said in a statement.
Focus on B2C model Meanwhile, Paytm, which primarily focussed on its wallet and recharge business earlier, is also increasingly shifting its focus to the B2C marketplace model. In a recent interview with BusinessLine , Sharma had mentioned that he is targeting Paytm to be a $100-billion company well before larger rivals Flipkart and Snapdeal besides focusing on profitability.