Flipkart invests $90 million in PhonePe

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Apr 28, 2020

Walmart-owned e-commerce platform Flipkart has invested $90 million (Rs 664.83 crore) in its marketplace and digital payments platform PhonePe after the entity expanded its grocery deliveries during lockdown.

 
Last week, Flipkart’s holding company Flipkart Pvt. Ltd. invested a combined $90 million into PhonePe, according to regulatory filings made in Singapore, accessed by ET Bureau. The investment aims to bolster PhonePe’s services as it competes with other digital payment and shopping services such as Paytm, Amazon Pay, and Google Pay.
 
The investment takes PhonePe’s total funding to date to $928 million. Flipkart’s e-commerce platform has suffered a significant loss in sales due to the prohibition of the sale of ‘non-essential’ goods under the nationwide lockdown and so the business is adapting to the current economic regulations and changing consumer landscape. Although groceries sales are up, this product category has thinner profit margins than sectors such as clothing and electronics and so the business is still facing financial uncertainty.

PhonePe has also launched a fundraising appeal for the PM-Cares Fund with Bollywood celebrity Alia Bhatt. The business is encouraging PhonePe users to use the app to donate to the fund and will add Rs 10 to each donation made using the app. PhonePe also announced on Facebook that if the appeal raises Rs 10 crore, it will add Rs 100 crore on top.