Paytm 3.0 - Reaching Near Breakeven In Two Years

As of 2020, Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s super app for financial services had run up losses in thousands of crores. Now, as digital payments gets yet another boost courtesy Covid-19, he’s hopeful of reaching near breakeven in two years

- Harichandan Arakali

Vijay Shekhar Sharma was trying to import a batch of oxygen concentrators from China when he sat down for an interview for this story. At some point, in between, he also left a voice note for his assistant to let everyone know he would participate in the week’s ‘Friday Final’ hangout, on a Zoom conference call, of course; once, these weekly get-togethers would have helped executives and staff to hang out with Sharma to unwind and talk about “what’s happening in life,” he says.

Today, there are staff on Zoom calls wearing masks, because someone in their family has Covid-19, or an urgent piece of work necessitated calling in a technician, Sharma says. “In 2020, Covid was in an apartment complex or a colony, and we knew it was there. In 2021, it has walked into everyone’s homes. I never thought it would be so harsh,” he says. The five-day holiday for Labour Day in China has delayed the fulfillment of the order for oxygen concentrators as well, as Paytm is trying to help staff and others.

“Entrepreneurs who believed that they owned the destiny of their lives, that they could do what they aspired to do, they are all struggling to accept the harsh reality,” he says, speaking from his Delhi home.

And yet, perhaps even more than demonetization, when India banned two high-value currency notes overnight in November 2016, the coronavirus has come as a shot in the arm for not just Paytm, India’s most valued startup and digital payments leader, but for multiple internetled ventures around the world.