Fintech

Inside Walmart’s push for a $15bn PhonePe IPO

Nikhil Patwardhan

Sayan Sen

March 17, 2025 | 16 Min Read

Walmart aims to maintain liquidity options in India and has begun talks to list Flipkart and PhonePe. However, challenges remain due to market conditions, fierce competition in fintech and e-commerce, and the companies' readiness for listing.

In January, Walmart, the world’s biggest retailer, dialed a few of India’s top investment bankers to discuss taking fintech giant PhonePe public.

With PhonePe currently India’s highest-valued new-age financial services startup, Walmart told the likes of Citi and Kotak that it wanted to list PhonePe by the last quarter of FY26 at the latest to generate some liquidity out of India.

In January, said a source with direct knowledge of the matter, bankers went to the US to meet with Walmart’s family office. “One thing which stood out was that Walmart was not very happy with the way their Flipkart investment has gone. It has been a seven-year investment, and they don’t really like how things are,” the source said, requesting anonymity as they aren’t authorised to speak with the media.

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