Yashish Dahiya’s PB Fintech Ltd. climbed 23% on its first day of trading after raising $761 million in an IPO. Now comes the hard part.
“Now, we have to deliver,” the founder and chief executive officer said just hours after the stock made its debut Monday.
The 13-year-old startup backed by SoftBank Group Corp. and Tiger Global Management faces heated competition from local and global players in both its operating segments — insurance and lending. But rivals like Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google would only spur it to better both the portals it operates, Policybazaar and Paisabazaar, said Dahiya. PB Fintech rose a further 14% Tuesday.
“Investors are valuing new age internet companies like ours not for what we are today but for what we could become,” he said. “It’s our job to take our companies to that future,” Dahiya, son of a former Indian defense services officer, said in an interview.
PB Fintech is among a bunch of Indian technology startups that have raced to the public markets and seen stock prices buoyed as investors have lapped up shares amid an unprecedented run in the Indian stock markets. On the first trading day, the shares closed at 1,202.30 rupees in Mumbai, a 22.7% gain from its issue price of 980 rupees, the top end of the indicative IPO range, days after investors bid for nearly 17 times the shares on sale.
Three Dozen Unicorns
Global investors have poured billions of dollars this year into India’s internet startups, creating more than three dozen unicorns — companies privately valued at $1 billion and above — surpassing the numbers for all previous years. Dozens of them are now in line to make their public debuts, a trend that started with food delivery startup Zomato Ltd. in July, which saw its value double after the listing, and extended to others including beauty retailer Nykaa, which soared 96% on debut last week.
What entrepreneurs and teams have to realize is that “the money doesn’t belong to us,” Dahiya said by phone from Mumbai after ringing the opening bell at the stock exchange. “There is no dearth of capital, that can no longer stop entrepreneurs,” as the flood of investments and the public market reception for the IPOs proved that entrepreneurs needed a vision and the ability to execute.
Dahiya’s father and his mother both accompanied him to the ceremonial bell-ringing event. “My Dad came wearing his medals, he was very proud.” Dahiya said. “He only asked me one question: ‘Son, what is an IPO?'”
–With assistance from Filipe Pacheco.
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