It’s nothing short of a biblical tale. Paytm*, India’s largest digital payments company, has drawn three wise men from lands afar to shower it with gifts.
First came the Chinese king, Alibaba. It presented Paytm with the Chinese digital payments playbook. Japanese behemoth SoftBank was next, bearing the single largest cheque any Indian tech company had seen until then. And now, investment firm Berkshire Hathaway, led by billionaire investor Warren Buffett, has made an investment of about $300 million in Paytm’s parent company—One97 Communications Ltd. Berkshire’s investment marks the first time that any large US investor—much less a legendary firm like Berkshire—has taken a position in an Indian fintech company.