Founded in 2010 by Vijay Shekhar Sharma in Noida, India, Paytm started as a prepaid mobile recharge and bill payments platform. It became a household name almost overnight following India's historic demonetization in November 2016, when the government scrapped high-value currency notes and hundreds of millions of Indians turned to Paytm for digital payments. At its peak, Paytm was processing over 1.4 billion transactions a month. The company expanded into e-commerce, financial services, insurance, and wealth management, and launched Paytm Payments Bank. Paytm went public on India's BSE and NSE in November 2021 in India's largest-ever IPO, raising $2.5 billion.
Active Founders
Vijay Shekhar Sharma
Founder / CEO
Vijay Shekhar Sharma is the founder and CEO of Paytm. Born in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, he comes from a humble background and learned English by reading newspapers as a teenager. He studied electronics and communication engineering at Delhi College of Engineering and sold his first company at age 22. Vijay built Paytm into India's most widely recognized digital payments brand and was named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People. He is known as one of India's most passionate and persistent entrepreneurs.
