When PhonePe files for a public listing, it will not just be testing investor appetite for India’s largest digital payments platform. It will also be offering one of the clearest case studies yet of how global venture capital firms are finding the exit after a bruising reset in tech valuations.

An updated IPO prospectus filed on Wednesday shows that Tiger Global and Microsoft are preparing to sell their entire stakes in the Walmart-backed fintech, while Walmart itself plans only a partial sell-down, retaining control of the company it has quietly shaped into a cornerstone of its India strategy. Up to 50.66 million shares are being offered, creating a long-awaited liquidity event for early and late-stage investors alike.

The structure of the offer is striking for what it leaves out. There are no founder sell-downs. Management is not cashing out. Instead, the selling pressure is coming almost entirely from financial and strategic investors, underscoring how the IPO is being used as a release valve for capital deployed during the peak of the venture boom.

Tiger Global and Microsoft, two of the most prominent backers of global tech over the past decade, are offering their full holdings. Walmart, by contrast, is selling up to 45.9 million shares, roughly 9% of the company, while keeping its majority stake intact, according to TechCrunch.

This means for Walmart, PhonePe remains a strategic asset; for others, it is time to move on.

PhonePe was last valued at around $12 billion in a January 2023 funding round. The company is now targeting a market capitalization of about $15 billion, a step-up that could allow it to raise as much as $1.5 billion in the IPO, according to people familiar with the matter. In a market still wary of richly priced tech listings, that valuation will be closely scrutinized, particularly given the company’s widening losses.

Founded in 2015 by Sameer Nigam, Rahul Chari, and Burzin Engineer, PhonePe was acquired by Flipkart just a year later, long before India’s payments revolution gathered full steam. What followed was a steady, methodical build-out rather than the blitz-scaling that defined many global fintech peers. The company anchored itself in digital payments through the Unified Payments Interface, then expanded into stockbroking, mutual funds, insurance distribution, and even an Android app store positioned as an alternative to Google Play.

That diversification has helped PhonePe entrench itself at the center of India’s consumer internet economy. It is the largest player in the country’s UPI ecosystem by transaction volume, consistently outpacing Google Pay. In December 2025 alone, PhonePe processed about 9.81 billion transactions worth roughly ?13.6 trillion, according to data from the National Payments Corporation of India. Google Pay, its closest rival, handled 7.50 billion transactions worth around ?9.6 trillion over the same period.

Yet scale has not translated into profitability. For the six months ended September 2025, PhonePe reported revenue from operations of ?39.19 billion, up 22% year on year. Over the same period, losses widened to ?14.44 billion from ?12.03 billion a year earlier. The figures highlight a familiar tension in fintech: dominance in usage does not automatically deliver earnings, particularly in a market where digital payments are largely free for consumers and margins remain thin.

The company’s corporate journey also mirrors the evolution of India’s startup ecosystem. PhonePe was spun out of Flipkart after a partial split announced in December 2020, with the separation completed in December 2022. Walmart emerged from that process as the dominant shareholder, doubling down on the view that payments, data, and financial services are central to its long-term ambitions in India.

The exit comes after a period of retrenchment for Tiger Global. Once one of the most aggressive investors in global tech, the firm has spent the past two years trimming exposure and returning capital as higher interest rates and public market volatility reshaped the venture landscape. Microsoft’s decision to sell its stake in full also signals a shift from minority investments toward partnerships more tightly aligned with its core cloud and AI businesses.

PhonePe’s IPO, then, is about more than one company going public. It is a window into how the excesses of the last funding cycle are being unwound, deal by deal, through public markets rather than blockbuster acquisitions. It also raises a sharper question for investors: whether India’s most dominant fintech platforms can convert unmatched scale into sustainable profits, or whether market leadership alone will have to suffice.

U.S. stocks staged a late-session rally on Wednesday, closing sharply higher after President Donald Trump said he had reached what he described as a “framework of a future deal” on Greenland, easing fears of an imminent escalation in trade tensions with Europe.

The market rebound followed a post by Trump on Truth Social after a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, in which he said the understanding would remove the need for tariffs that had been scheduled to take effect on February 1.

“This solution, if consummated, will be a great one for the United States of America, and all NATO Nations,” Trump wrote. “Based upon this understanding, I will not be imposing the Tariffs that were scheduled to go into effect on February 1st.”

The president had earlier threatened to impose a 10% tariff on goods from eight European countries, with the levy set to rise to 25% by June if no agreement was reached. That threat, delivered earlier in the week, triggered a sharp sell-off on Tuesday that erased about $1 trillion from the S&P 500, as investors rushed to reprice the risk of a wider transatlantic trade confrontation.

Details of the Greenland framework remained sparse, but the lack of clarity did little to slow Wednesday’s buying spree. Investors moved quickly back into equities, reversing much of the prior session’s losses and signaling renewed confidence that the administration may be stepping back from its most aggressive trade posture.

Market strategists quoted by Business Insider pointed to the episode as a textbook example of the so-called TACO trade — shorthand for “Trump Always Chickens Out” — a phrase that has gained traction among traders who believe the president often uses maximalist threats as leverage, only to soften his stance once negotiations begin.

“The comments addressed two of the biggest headwinds hanging over markets,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Wealth Management. He noted that Trump’s remarks appeared to defuse both tariff risks and geopolitical anxiety. “Walk softly and carry a big stick, and you get that TACO reaction and the market can finally unclench. It’s an exhausting process, and this is the exact news investors were hoping to hear — some form of resolution.”

The sense of relief had already begun to build earlier in the day, when Trump told delegates at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that he would not use military force to take control of Greenland. That statement helped calm nerves after earlier rhetoric raised questions about how far the administration might push its territorial ambitions.

As equities rallied, other elements of what some traders have dubbed the “Sell America” trade began to unwind. The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yield fell four basis points, signaling renewed demand for government debt, while the U.S. Dollar Index firmed modestly to 98.82, suggesting stabilizing confidence in dollar-denominated assets.

“President Trump’s statement that he won’t use military force to control Greenland is sparking a relief rally on Wall Street on the heels of yesterday’s sell-off,” said Jos Torres, senior economist at Interactive Brokers.

He described the market reaction as pent-up positioning being released once investors sensed a shift in tone.

“Traders piled into shares and Treasuries once the U.S. leader delivered a more conciliatory message than expected.”

For many analysts, the episode fits a familiar pattern. Matthew Ryan, head of market strategy at Ebury, said Trump’s use of tariffs remains largely tactical.

“As we know from recent history, Trump uses these tariffs as a blunt instrument and a negotiating lever to pull to get his way on the world stage,” Ryan wrote, adding that his base case remained a compromise between the U.S. and Denmark, with the TACO trade resurfacing as a dominant market theme.

The term gained prominence last April after Trump walked back some of his tariff proposals for Liberation Day, triggering a record-breaking rally in U.S. stocks. Chatter around the trade intensified again on Tuesday as markets absorbed the Greenland-related tariff threats, only to reverse course a day later.

Analysts at JPMorgan said they were interpreting the administration’s latest moves through what they called an “Art of the Deal” lens, arguing that Trump’s strategy often involves creating urgency through aggressive positioning.

“Trump creates noise and throws in a maximal stance designed to trigger negotiation and create leverage,” the bank wrote in a note to clients, adding that an eventual agreement with Denmark appeared the most likely outcome.

Other research firms echoed that view. BCA Research estimated there was a 40% chance the new tariffs would not be implemented at all, possibly due to what it described as Trump’s own retreat. Chief geopolitical strategist Matt Gertken said a familiar sequence could follow, with markets initially rattled, only for the administration to change course, as it did after Liberation Day.