Walmart-owned digital payment firm PhonePe has awarded its media duties to Mindshare India, sources have confirmed to Storyboard18. The incumbent agency on the account is Lodestar UM. The size of the account is estimated to be around Rs 400 crore.
PhonePe has declined to comment on the development while Mindshare has not made any official statement on the win. Storyboard18 Insider had previously written about the big media accounts up for grabs including GroupM looking to bring the PhonePe account in the fold.
With over 360 million registered users, PhonePe says that it has digitized over 27 million offline merchants spread across tier II, III and IV towns and beyond, covering 99 percent pin codes in the country. The company forayed into financial services in 2017, providing users an option to buy 24-karat gold, and has recently also launched silver on its platform. Since then, PhonePe has introduced several mutual funds and insurance products like tax-saving funds, liquid funds, international travel insurance, life insurance, COVID-19 insurance amongst others.
Recently, PhonePe has raised $100 million as part of an ongoing round, which has now helped it pull $450 million in recent weeks despite the market downturn. This helps the digital payment firm to compete in the market after its recent separation from the parent firm Flipkart.
Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global and TVS Capital pumped the new $100 million into the startup. The ongoing round values the Bengaluru-headquartered PhonePe at a pre-money valuation of $12 billion. PhonePe has said previously that it plans to raise up to $1 billion as part of the ongoing financing round.
At a $12 billion valuation, PhonePe India is now the most valuable fintech startup. It competes with Google Pay and Paytm. PhonePe is also becoming a distribution engine, leveraging the large 300 million user base to cross-sell products such as insurance and mutual funds.