India’s largest digital payment platform Paytm’s founder, Vijay Shekhar Sharma was overwhelmed with tears on the day of the debut of the company in the stock market. Paytm which was founded by Vijay Shekhar Sharma in 2010 finally launched its IPO (Initial Public Offering) at Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).

Contents hide
1. Details of the Event
2. Vijay’s Emotional Outburst
3. Fall of Paytm’s IPO on the Day of its Debut
4. Story of Paytm

Details of the Event

The event of the IPO launch was held at the BSE building’s Convention Hall on 18th November, Thursday. The event began with the ritual of ringing the gong exactly at 10 am, as usual announcing the formal launch of Paytm’s IPO. The parent company of Paytm, One97 Communications launched its IPO with the value of  ₹18,300 crores. The event of Paytm’s launch was attended by its founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Ashish Chauhan, the CEO and MD of BSE.

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Vijay’s Emotional Outburst

On Thursday morning when India’s biggest ever IPO of Paytm was listed, the founder of the company got emotional at the moment while he was addressing the crowd. He was seen wiping his tears using his handkerchief while expressing his emotions. Vijay said that the term in our national anthem, “Bharat Bhagya Vidhata” overwhelms him. In his speech, he said, “It just overwhelms me. Just saying these words get tears in my eyes,” wiping his tears off. The video of the Paytm founder’s overwhelming moment is now going viral on the internet.

Fall of Paytm’s IPO on the Day of its Debut

Though the company made a debit in the stock market of BSE as India’s largest initial public offering (IPO) within minutes of its trading, the shares of Paytm fell by 20% and started trading in the red zone. The IPO that started with an offer price of Rs 2150, soon started to exchange hands in Rs 1645. Seeing this fall the investors started questioning the business model of Paytm.

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Story of Paytm

In 2010, an engineering graduate Vijay Shekhar Sharma started a digital payment platform named Paytm. Initially, it was only used for mobile recharges. The company saw its first growth when Uber, a ride-hailing firm listed Paytm as a faster payment option in India. Still in a country like India digital payment was not easily acceptable. Finally, in November 2016 when our Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the step of demonetization, the true value of digital payment was understood. After this, the company saw immense growth leading to launching its IPO in the stock market. Now Paytm also allows bill payment, gas cylinder booking, and payment, DTH recharge, Paytm mall, etc.

Today Vijay Shekhar Sharma, who was a school teacher’s son, is a billionaire with the success of Paytm with a net worth of $2.4 billion. Ant Group of China and SoftBank are among the backers of Paytm which raised $2.5 billion worth of bids for remaining shares a d raised $1.1 billion from institutional investors. The IPO of Paytm has also minted hundreds of new millionaires in a country like India where per capita income is below USD 2,000.