India’s Paytm slides over 10% to all-time low after lock-up interval expires • TechCrunch

Shares of Paytm slid over 10% Tuesday to an all-time low of 476 Indian rupees ($5.8) after the lock-up interval for early backers of the Indian monetary providers agency ended final week.

The lock-up interval for the corporate’s earlier backers expired final week, liberating important buyers resembling SoftBank Group and Alibaba to promote their shares. SoftBank bought shares value over $200 million final week.

At 476 Indian rupees, Paytm’s shares are down over 77% from the IPO value of two,150 ($26.3). The corporate, which was valued at $16 billion in a personal spherical in 2016, at the moment has the market cap of $3.8 billion. Paytm raised greater than $6 billion throughout personal rounds and IPO (together with secondary transactions).

Tech corporations have misplaced important worth this 12 months because the market takes a downturn and reverses a lot of the positive factors from the earlier 13-year bull run. Paytm is amongst quite a lot of Indian startups that went public final 12 months. Zomato, PolicyBazaar, Nykaa and Delhivery — among the different startups which have gone public prior to now two years — are all buying and selling significantly under their IPO costs.

Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the founding father of Paytm, assured buyers final week that the agency is working “on the suitable path to profitability and free money flows.”

“Our journey to construct a scalable and worthwhile monetary providers enterprise has simply began.”

The erosion in Paytm’s shares can also have a knock-on impact on the broader fintech startup ecosystem in India. PhonePe, a rival of Paytm, is trying to boost a spherical from Common Atlantic and Walmart at a $12 billion valuation, in line with MoneyControl.

Sharma has mentioned the corporate is working to make Paytm hit $1 billion in annual income by the top of this fiscal 12 months in March.