Tiger Global, Microsoft to fully exit Walmart-backed PhonePe via its IPO

Tiger Global and Microsoft are primed to fully exit PhonePe, the Walmart-backed Indian payments startup which has updated its IPO filing, offering investors and market watchers a rare peek at how global investors are cashing out of the venture boom via India’s public markets.

On Wednesday, PhonePe updated its IPO prospectus (PDF), detailing how many shares are up for sale. Tiger Global and Microsoft are offering up their full stakes in the company, while Walmart is choosing to retain its majority stake, and selling up to 45.9 million shares (about 9% of the company).

Up to 50.66 million shares are up for sale, marking a liquidity event for existing shareholders.

PhonePe was valued at about $12 billion in a January 2023 funding round, though it is targeting a market capitalization of around $15 billion in the IPO, which could raise up to $1.5 billion, sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.

The offer does not include any founder sell-downs, and the prospectus shows the share sale is being driven by existing investors rather than by PhonePe’s management.

Founded in 2015 by Sameer Nigam, Rahul Chari, and Burzin Engineer and acquired by e-commerce giant Flipkart a year later, PhonePe has emerged as one of India’s most successful fintechs. The company started with digital payments and has expanded into stockbroking, mutual fund investments, and even offers an Android app store as an alternative to the Google Play Store.

PhonePe is the largest player in India’s digital payments market, leading the UPI ecosystem in transaction volumes and staying ahead of Google Pay. In December 2025, it processed about 9.81 billion transactions worth roughly ₹13.6 trillion (about $148.6 billion), compared with Google Pay’s 7.50 billion transactions worth about ₹9.6 trillion (around $104.5 billion), according to the latest NPCI data.

The company was spun off after Flipkart decided on a partial split in December 2020. PhonePe and Flipkart completed their separation in December 2022, and Walmart remained the fintech’s dominant shareholder.

In the six months ended September 2025, PhonePe’s revenue from operations rose 22% to ₹39.19 billion (about $427.79 million) from a year earlier, while its loss widened to ₹14.44 billion (around $157.70 million) from ₹12.03 billion (about $131.34 million), per the prospectus.