Paytm

Paytm is an Indian e-commerce shopping website headquartered in Noida, India, launched in 2010. It is owned by One97 Communications The firm started by offering mobile recharging, adding bill payment and e-commerce, with products similar to businesses such as Flipkart, Amazon.com, Snapdeal. In 2015, it added booking bus travel.[2] Paytm also launched movie ticket booking in early 2016.

History

Paytm was founded and incubated by One97 communications in 2010 as a prepaid mobile recharge website. Paytm is an acronym for “Pay Through Mobile”.[3] with Android, windows and iOS apps.

Services

In 2014, the company launched Paytm Wallet, now India’s largest mobile payment service platform with over 100 million wallets & 10 million app downloads.[4] Paytm users can pay for the fuel at Indian Oil Petrol pump through paytm wallet.[5] Users can also book movie tickets on Paytm and has partnered with PVR, INOX and other cinemas.

Funding

In March 2015, Indian industrialist Ratan Tata made personal investment in the firm .[7] The same month, the company received a $575 million investment from Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group,[8] after Ant Financial Services Group, an Alibaba Group affiliate, took 25% stake in One97 as part of a strategic agreement.[9] Paytm borrowed 300cr from ICICI Bank in March 2016 as working capital.

Vijay Shekhar Sharma

Vijay Shekhar Sharma is an Indian entrepreneur and founder of Paytm.[1] Sharma was born in Aligarh, UP in a modest family. Sharma cites Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma and Masayoshi Son of Softbank as his inspirations.[2]

In December 2015, Sharma criticised Facebook’s Free Basics initiative in India, as being against the principle of net neutrality.

Early life

He faced difficulty in his studies at Delhi College of Engineering because he did not speak English[citation needed]. In 1997, while in college Sharma started the website indiasite.net and sold it two years later for $1 million.

Career

In 2005, he started One97 Communications which offered mobile content like news, cricket scores, ringtones, jokes and exam results. One97 now is Paytm’s parent company.[5] He started college at 15 and runs a billion dollar company at age 37 now.