In 2000, when he was providing ringback tunes and live astrology services to mobile users, Vijay Shekhar Sharma would have probably settled for a business worth few hundred crores. Nearly two decades later, Paytm, the mobile wallet and e-commerce company he built, is valued at over $4 billion.

On Tuesday, Reliance Capital, the financial services arm of Anil Ambani’s Reliance Group, sold a 1 per cent stake in Paytm to Chinese internet giant Alibaba for about ₹275 crore. The transaction thus values Paytm at nearly $4.5 billion. This comes a week after Sharma sold a stake in Paytm’s e-commerce unit to investors led by Alibaba for $200 million.

Sharma’s rise has also meant that early investors in his company have also gained. Reliance Capital, for example, had invested just ₹10 crore. In December, Sharma sold 1 per cent of his personal stake in the company to Alibaba for about ₹375 crore.

Sharma has been diluting stake in the e-commerce business to focus on the Paytm Payments Bank, which will also have the company’s wallet business. However, it is still unclear whether he will retain the Paytm brand for his payments bank.

The e-commerce business will now be controlled by Alibaba, which owns a 60 per cent stake. Paytm has also launched a new app called Paytm Mall, which is a format similar to Alibaba’s Tmall.

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