Sameer Nigam: Know the co-founder and CEO of PhonePe

Digital payments company based on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), PhonePe was incorporated in  2015, and in April 2016, the company was acquired by Flipkart(owned by Walmart) and as part of the acquisition, the FxMart license was transferred to PhonePe, later rebranded as the PhonePe wallet. PhonePe then announced Sameer Nigam as its CEO, Rahul Chari as CTO, and Burzin Engineer as CRO. Before PhonePe, Sameer Nigam served as the Director of Product Management at Shopzilla Inc, where he built the company's proprietary shopping search engine.

Sameer Nigam is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of PhonePe, an Indian digital payments company. Sameer Nigam, Rahul Chari, and Burzin Engineer founded PhonePe in December 2015.

Digital payments company based on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), PhonePe was incorporated in  2015, and in April 2016, the company was acquired by Flipkart(owned by Walmart) and as part of the acquisition, the FxMart license was transferred to PhonePe, later rebranded as the PhonePe wallet. PhonePe then announced Sameer Nigam as its CEO, Rahul Chari as CTO, and Burzin Engineer as CRO.

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Before PhonePe, Sameer Nigam served as the Director of Product Management at Shopzilla Inc, where he built the company's proprietary shopping search engine. Later he founded a startup called Mime360, a digital media distribution platform. In 2011, Mime360 was acquired by Flipkart. After the acquisition, Sameer's journey with Flipkart began.  He served as the Senior Vice President (SVP) of Engineering and Vice President (VP) of Marketing at Flipkart.

In 2016, Flipkart also acquired PhonePe and appointed Sameer Nigam as the CEO of the company. The app is available in 11 Indian languages. The app allows its users various services - they can send and receive money, recharge mobile, DTH, data cards, make utility payments, pay at shops, invest in tax saving funds, liquid funds, buy insurance, mutual funds, gold and silver, etc.

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The app is licensed by the Reserve Bank of India for the issuance and operation of a Semi Closed Prepaid Payment system.

PhonePe has over 35 crores of active users. In 2017, the app overtook BHIM to become the market leader in UPI transactions.

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In 2018, it became the fastest Indian payment app to get a five crore badge on the Google Play Store.

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In May 2022, the company announced the acquisition of India-based Wealth Management fund WealthDesk for $50 million and Smart Beta Wealth Management Platform, OpenQ for $25 million.

In 2021, PhonePe won two awards at IAMAI India Digital Awards 2021 - Gold for Excellence in Wealth Management (for Mutual Funds category) and Silver for Unstoppable India video

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In the same year, the company also won, the ‘Excellence in Insurtech’ award at Assocham's Fintech & Digital Payments Awards 2021

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Sameer Nigam lives in Bengaluru, Karnataka. Sameer holds an MBA from the Wharton Business School (University of Pennsylvania), USA, and a Master’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Arizona, Tucson-USA.

 In 2009, Sameer won the coveted Wharton Venture Award, bestowed by the prestigious Wharton Business School.
 

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