Silicon Valley Bank not a stakeholder in Paytm, Vijay Shekhar Sharma clarifies

Sharma’s tweet comes hours after SVB, which did business as Silicon Valley Bank, collapsed on Friday in the largest bank failure since the 2008 financial crisis, roiling global markets and stranding billions of dollars belonging to companies and investors.

Regulators stepped in and seized it in a stunning downfall for a lender that had quadrupled in size over the past five years.

“Silicon Valley Bank was one of my first investor when @AshLilani supported us in first around of investments at One97. Thanks to him, we grew from a telco VAS company to what we are today,” Sharma wrote on Twitter.

“Long back, by selling to other private investors, SVB exited fully with handsome returns on their total investment of only $1.7Mn. They neither are a current shareholder nor invested the amount given here,” said the Paytm CEO, clarifying its stand on the investment done by SVB in the digital financial services firm.

Paytm’s current stakeholders

Currently, Paytm is backed by China’s Ant Group and Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp. Ant has a nearly 25% stake in Paytm, while SoftBank owns about 13%, according to exchange data.

Ant and SoftBank are reportedly seeking to sell their stakes in Paytm in the open market.

The companies had earlier approached Bharti Airtel founder-chairman Sunil Mittal to sell their stakes in Paytm’s parent One 97 Communications, but those talks did not make much headway.

China’s Alibaba Group has exited Paytm earlier February by selling its remaining stake in the company for about ₹1,378 crore. SoftBank had also previously sold a 4.5% stake in Paytm through block deals for about $200 million.

Paytm has been under pressure to turn profitable ever since its dismal listing in late 2021. The stock has tumbled about 70 per cent below their IPO price of ₹2,150 as lofty valuations of loss-making tech firms come under scrutiny amid volatility in the financial markets.