India will dwarf other countries’ start-up ecosystems: Paytm founder

Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Indian online payments pioneer Paytm, has said that the wave of surging valuations for India’s technology start-ups is here to stay as the country offers a great opportunity in terms of growth.

Paytm raised $2.5 billion in the nation’s biggest initial public offering ever this week. Sharma, speaking at Bloomberg India Economic Forum on Thursday, said Indian start-ups are not overpriced and “many are underestimating what India’s opportunity will be”.

“If we go by anything that happened in the US, China, or other parts of the world, including Indonesia, India is an opportunity which will dwarf many other countries’ start-up or technology ecosystems,” he said.

Bloomberg reported citing researcher Tracxn that investors, lured by the opportunity, have poured in $7.6 billion into Indian fintech companies, nearly four-fold the amount their Chinese counterparts drew. Digital start-ups in other sectors, including FSN E-Commerce Ventures, that operates Indian beauty start-up Nykaa, and food delivery app Zomato, have also seen overwhelming demand for shares.

An open-network is luring hundreds into the fintech space in India including Alphabet’s Google, Walmart’s Phonepe and Amazon.com leading to a world-beating digital payments surge. Digital payments grew five-fold in the last five years and are estimated to touch $2.2 trillion by March 2023 while digital lending is seen trebling to $350 billion, according to Bloomberg.

Also read: Why Bollywood actor Katrina Kaif was at Nykaa’s listing ceremony?