softbankbacked paytm plans to invest up to usd 25 billion to grow its nascent online shopping portal business within 35 years as it eyes top spot by beating flipkart and amazon its founder vijay shekhar sharma said paytm ecommerce pvt ltd which operates an online shopping portal for digital and physical goods is latest to enter the ecommerce space where rivals amazon and flipkart are pouring in billions of dollars to boost market share in an interview to sharma 38 exuded confidence that paytms ecommerce unit paytm mall has a real good shot at reaching the top spot even though online shopping business as such is a longterm bet and certainly not for the faint hearted this is a marathon it is absolutely not about this months number versus next said sharma who sees the e commerce business as booming but long gestation as ecommerce business we started six months ago and we are nearly half of the large companies it has grown so fabulously well that we believe that we have a real good shot in the longer horizon in 35 years of reaching the top spot he said the ecommerce business in india has grown at a phenomenal pace with two giants us based amazon and home grown flipkart battling it out for leadership of the market jeff bezos worlds richest man has committed usd 5 billion investment into amazon india which he believes is a key market flipkart on the other hand had received usd 25 billion from softbank and tencent earlier this year sharma who shot to fame after paytms mobile wallet became a household name following the governments demonetisation drive in november 2016 has since entered the business of payments bank as well as ecommerce asked about the investments that would be infused into the paytms ecommerce business sharma said it will at least be 225 billion dollars asserting that the company would be efficient in utilising the funds sharma said while we would not need usd 5 billion we will need couple of billion dollars the process of fund raising would start in january to march quarter of 2018 he said adding that the company has already seen investor interest coming from various geographies we have actually not started our fund raising process we have interest from people and we will probably look at it in next few months and decide the amount of money and who will be the investors he said drawing a distinction between the various businesses sharma said that while paytms investment horizons would not go beyond 23 years the ecommerce business would involve an investment cycle of more than five years it ecommerce business is for the people who have a longterm bet on the country he added pti published on dec 4 2017 at 0745 am ist telegram facebook copy link be the first one to comment comment now comments comment now read comment 1 all comments post post find this comment offensive