Paytm's $2.5 Billion IPO Makes 350 Current, Previous Employees Millionaires – All You Need To Know

About 350 current and ex-employees will each have a net worth of at least 10 million Indian rupees ($134,401.38) after Paytm's $2.5 billion IPO, a source in the company told Reuters. 

(Representative Image)

New Delhi: Paytm, which is all set for India’s largest-ever public offering, will create around 350 millionaires in India as it goes public next week. About 350 current and ex-employees will each have a net worth of at least 10 million Indian rupees ($134,401.38) after Paytm's $2.5 billion IPO, a source in the company told Reuters. 

Electronics engineer Sidharth Pandey will have a worth of more than $1 million, he told Reuters. He said that he had to fight his father’s reluctance for joining Paytm nine years ago when it was only a startup in 2013. “My dad was very demotivating. He said, 'What is this Paytime?!',” he recollected.

Pandey, 39-years-old, no longer works with Paytm and has joined another startup. Though, he says his seven-year stint at Paytm left him with tens of thousands of shares. “Part of the money goes into my retirement fund and I will use a large part of it for my kids' education,” he told Reuters.

In 2013, Paytm was a small payments company with less than 1,000 staff. Now, it has more than 10,000 employees and offers a range of services from banking, shopping, movie, and travel ticketing to gaming.

Pandey, who belongs to Uttar Pradesh, took his father on a five-day luxury trip to Udaipur in September to celebrate and spend around Rs. 4,00,000. “Now he (my father) is obviously very happy. He has just asked me to stay grounded,” he said.

He added that this windfall will help him work at more startups where he is not entirely focused on income or might get back into academics. “Paytm has always been a generous paymaster. Vijay (Sharma, the Paytm founder) has always wanted that people make money, they move up in life,” he said.