Sameer Nigam, who calls himself Mumbai born and bred, co-founded PhonePe in December 2015 with Rahul Chari and Burzin Engineer. After a long whiteboard pitch from Sachin Bansal, Burzin told the others they were either just crazy or going to change the world.
Flipkart acquired PhonePe in April 2016, and Nigam became CEO. He has called the sale one of the hardest decisions of his life. The team launched one of the first UPI apps in August 2016 with Yes Bank. He put the odds of UPI succeeding at roughly one percent. Early on, the team worked from an office outside HSR Layout in Bengaluru.
In January 2017 ICICI Bank and Airtel blocked PhonePe transactions. NPCI reversed this and said UPI norms had been violated, and it was resolved in February 2017. PhonePe partly split from Flipkart in December 2020 and shifted its domicile to India in 2022.
In January 2023 General Atlantic invested $350 million at a $12 billion pre-money valuation, followed by Ribbit, Tiger Global, TVS Capital and Walmart. PhonePe filed confidentially for an IPO in September 2025 and deferred it in March 2026. FY26 operating revenue was Rs 7,920.5 crore with a net loss of Rs 2,792 crore.