Walmart’s startup PhonePe: Walmart Inc.'s digital payments brand PhonePe from General Atlantic and existing investors including Tiger Global Management, Qatar Investment Authority and Microsoft Corp. Working on a plan to raise $1 billion. This thing has come to the fore by quoting some sources. The special thing is that the company is going to do this amidst the paucity of private funding for startups. Sources said the fully equity-based round is expected to close in the next two weeks and could value PhonePe at around $13 billion.

PhonePe may be among the most valuable brands

With Boston Consulting Group's estimate of the digital payments market size to triple to $10 trillion by 2026, PhonePe could be among India's most valuable brands.

The company is in talks with SoftBank Group Corp's Vision Fund, an investor in PhonePe's parent entity Flipkart. However, Walmart will remain the largest investor. Due to the loss to the portfolio, SoftBank has significantly reduced its investments this year. PhonePe declined to respond to email queries regarding the fund raising.

Can leave Paytm behind

With this new valuation, the Bengaluru-based company PhonePe will overtake Paytm's parent company One97 Communications Ltd. The market capitalization of One97 Communications has come down to $4 billion, a decline of 70 per cent since its listing on the stock market last year. Competition between PhonePe, Paytm, Alphabet Inc's Google Pay and Amazon.com Inc's Amazon Pay heats up, while several other startups prepare to jump into India's rapidly digital economy. SoftBank has also invested in Paytm.