Walmart’s PhonePe Says War Has Halted IPO Plans

Indian digital payments provider PhonePe has paused its plans to go public.

The Walmart-backed company cited geopolitical conflicts and market upheaval as reasons for delaying its initial public offering (IPO), according to a statement from the FinTech provided to PYMNTS Monday (March 16).

“We sincerely hope for a swift return to peace in all the affected regions. We remain committed to a public listing in India,” said Sameer Nigam, PhonePe’s founder and CEO.

PhonePe aims to restart the IPO process when the market stabilizes, the statement added. The company filed to go public last fall and got regulatory approval for its listing in January.

A report earlier this month from Reuters said the company hopes to go public at a valuation of $9 billion to $10.5 billion, indicating PhonePe will raise around $900 million to $1.05 billion. That valuation would mark a downgrade from the $12 billion the company reached following a funding round in 2023.

The same report also cited sources who said the timing of the company’s IPO could depend on changing market conditions, such as the impact of conflict in the Middle East.

PhonePe was founded in 2015 and was soon acquired by FlipKart, another Walmart-backed company. The two companies severed their relationship in 2022, though are still tied to Walmart. PhonePe has grown to become India’s most popular digital payments app, competing with the likes of Google Pay as well as local players like Paytm.

It could also soon find itself going up against Apple Pay as that company looks to launch in India. A report last month from Bloomberg News said the tech giant was in talks with Indian lenders ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank with plans to bring its digital wallet to the world’s most populous country in the middle of the year.

PhonePe’s plans come five days after another digital payments startup, the Japanese company PayPay, announced it was pricing its U.S. IPO at $16 per share, lower than the company’s marketed range of $17 to $20.

A report by Bloomberg News at the time noted that this IPO was being undertaken as the Iran conflict is churning up market turbulence, and that the environment for listings was challenging even before the start of the war.