Paytm CEO and co-founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma on Saturday tweeted that Silicon Valley Bank, which was one of its early backers, was no longer a stakeholder in the fintech giant. SVB had exited even before the recent crisis at the bank, he said.
“Silicon Valley Bank was one of my first investors when Ash Lilani supported us in the first round of investments at One97. Thanks to him, we grew from a telco value-added services company to what we are today,” the Paytm CEO tweeted.
“Long back, by selling to other private investors, SVB exited fully with handsome returns on their total investment of only $1.7 million. They neither are a current shareholder nor invested the amount…” Sharma replied to data compiled by Tracxn that showed SVB had invested upwards of $4 billion in the fintech platform. But Paytm was not alone. SVB has invested in over 20 startups like BlueStone, Sarva, Gensis Colors, Naaptol, Bharat Financial Inclusion, Games2Win Media, CarWale. It even backed new-age companies like iYogi, TutorVista, Geodesic Techniques, Shaadi, iCafe Manager and several others. To be sure, SVB has not made an investment in India in at least the past decade at least, Tracxn data showed.
