Chinese firms are investing billions of dollars in India's e-commerce market. One of the biggest deals has involved Paytm, India's most valuable unicorn.
It was New Year’s Eve, and Vijay Shekhar Sharma was out of breath. Standing on a stage in front of his employees, the chief executive of digital payment startup Paytm was screaming into a microphone and jumping up and down as red and yellow lights flashed around him.
“We ripped 2016,” Sharma said, almost falling over as the audience whooped and hollered. “2017 will be ours. How won’t it?!”
Just seven weeks earlier, India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, had announced he was invalidating more than 80 percent of India’s currency notes in an effort to curb illegal activity. In a country where cash reigned, Paytm had been plugging digital payments for years with decent progress. But now, as Sharma and his audience knew, demonetization would change everything.
People wait outside a private bank to deposit and exchange 500 and 1000 currency notes after Modi announced demonetization.Credit: Biswarup Ganguly, Creative Commons
“Not only the country, bu
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