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Thakur said about a third of her customers pay her for milk, bread and other daily groceries via Paytm. "I didn't know corona would happen but Paytm was very useful to me during the pandemic," Mumbai grocery shop owner Naina Thakur told AFP. It has benefited from the government's efforts to curb the use of cash-including the demonetisation of nearly all banknotes in circulation five years ago-and most recently, from Covid. The platform was launched in 2010 and quickly became synonymous with digital payments in a country traditionally dominated by cash transactions. The IPO is expected to make Paytm India's most valuable tech company with a valuation of $20 billion, up 25 percent from two years ago. Paytm was issuing fresh shares worth 83 billion rupees ($1.1 billion), with existing shareholders selling stocks worth $1.34 billion, according to the prospectus. He was ranked India's youngest dollar billionaire four years ago at the age of 38 and now has a net worth of $2.4 billion, according to Forbes.
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The firm was founded barely a decade ago by Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the son of a schoolteacher who says he learned English by listening to rock music. Paytm is backed by Chinese tycoon Jack Ma's Ant Group, Japan's SoftBank and Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, which together own around a third of the company.