Warren Buffett Plans Investment in Indian Mobile Payments Giant Paytm

Warren Buffett’s investment career is both long and storied, and comes with several tales of noteworthy success. While his remarks on cryptocurrency are a little less storied, at least to some, it’s quite clear that the man knows what he’s doing. This is why reports that his company, Berkshire Hathaway, is planning to pick up a stake in India’s mobile payments leader Paytm are making a lot of investors take likewise notice.

Reports suggest that Berkshire Hathaway and Paytm have been in talks to get fresh investment in valued at around 25 billion rupees, or about $357,625,000 US as of this writing. This would bring Paytm up to a grand total of about $10 billion in valuation, and reports suggest we could get official word on this deal by the end of this week.

Buffett himself has long had an interest in India, noting that the country had “incredible potential” as a market. He himself noted “If you tell me a wonderful company in India that might be available for sale, I’ll be there tomorrow.”

Paytm already has some impressive investors behind it, including both SoftBank and Alibaba, so adding Berkshire Hathaway to the mix only improves Paytm’s market credibility. While the Indian mobile payments market was once more a curiosity than anything else, the recent move to demonetize much of the nation’s currency made mobile payments and similar technologies particularly more valuable in the country. While Paytm made a credible push to the top, it was far from the only firm in the market.

Now, however, Paytm has some impressive backers behind it, and with the addition of Berkshire Hathaway now likely, Paytm not only has a valuation so staggering that it’s approximately similar to the entire gross domestic product of Sierra Leone by World Bank figures, but it also has the psychologically-useful backing of the Wizard of Omaha himself, Warren Buffett. That’s the kind of thing that should draw fresh investment into Paytm, and also may have a halo effect on other Indian tech companies. Not necessarily mobile payments—Paytm may have that market sewn up now—but tech in general.

Only time will tell what the ultimate effects are here, but it’s a safe bet that Paytm will prosper going forward thanks to Warren Buffett’s help.