How Phonepe became No.1 Friendly user UPI App in India

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PhonePe, the Indian digital payments app (often called "Phone Pay"), was founded by Sameer Nigam, Rahul Chari, and Burzin Engineer in December 2015. Founders' Roles: Sameer Nigam serves as Founder, Whole-time Director, and CEO, leading the company's growth into payments, insurance, and wealth services.

 Rahul Chari is Founder, Whole-time Director, and CTO, with prior experience building startups like Mime360 alongside Nigam. Burzin Engineer acts as Founder and Chief Reliability Officer. Company Background: Headquartered in Bengaluru, PhonePe launched its UPI-based app in 2016 and was initially acquired by Flipkart. (Note: "Phone pay" results also reference historical payphones by William Grey, but context points to the modern Indian fintech.)

PhonePe's founders—Sameer Nigam, Rahul Chari, and Burzin Engineer—shared deep professional ties before launching the company in 2015. Sameer Nigam (CEO) studied Computer Engineering at the University of Mumbai and earned an MSc from the University of Arizona, plus an MBA from The Wharton School. He worked at Shopzilla from 2001 to 2007, directing search product development, then co-founded Mime360 in 2009 (acquired by Flipkart in 2011), where he took senior roles in marketing and engineering.

Rahul Chari (CTO)Chari, a roommate and friend of Nigam from the University of Mumbai in the 1990s, holds a B.E. in Computer Science from BITS Pilani and an MS from Purdue University. He held early engineering roles, co-founded Mime360 with Nigam, and stayed at Flipkart post-acquisition to build infrastructure, spotting payment system flaws during sales events.

Burzin Engineer (CRO), who met Nigam in Los Angeles early in their careers, also studied Computer Engineering at the University of Mumbai. He joined Mime360 in 2009, left for another startup after Flipkart's acquisition, but rejoined for PhonePe after the Flipkart experience highlighted payment needs.

PhonePe's founders held key leadership roles at Flipkart after their startup Mime360 was acquired in 2011. Sameer NigamNigam joined Flipkart post-acquisition and served as Senior Vice President of Engineering, later advancing to Chief Product Officer. He focused on scalable systems and payments during his 2011–2015 tenure.

Rahul Chari remained at Flipkart after the acquisition, working as a principal engineer to build e-commerce infrastructure. He identified payment bottlenecks during major sales events, inspiring PhonePe.Burzin EngineerEngineer took on senior product management roles at Flipkart following the 2011 acquisition. He departed shortly after for another startup but rejoined the trio for PhonePe.

PhonePe became user-friendly through intuitive design choices that prioritised simplicity, speed, and familiarity from its early days. Core Design Principles. The app kept essential actions like sending money, bank transfers, and balance checks at the top of the home screen for quick access, building on habits from its 2016 UPI launch. QR scanning was relocated to a larger, thumb-friendly footer button to speed up urgent real-world payments, like at stores or taxis.

Key Evolution A major 2025 redesign restructured over 800 screens with clearer information architecture, balancing new features (like RuPay Credit and UPI Circle) while retaining trusted layouts. Transitional aids—onboarding animations, nudges, and release notes emphasising "still the app you trust"—eased users into changes without disruption. Early Foundations: Pre-design system efforts addressed scaling issues like inconsistent colours and typography as the user base grew, creating a unified, modular UI across apps.

PhonePe's major redesign, particularly in PhonePe 3.0 (rolled out around mid-2025), introduced key features to streamline navigation and enhance usability across its 800+ screens. Navigation UpgradesBottom navigation bar provides thumb-friendly access to Home, Search, Scan, Alerts, and History, replacing scattered menus. 

Global Search enables instant lookup of people, billers, features, or transactions from one bar. Layout and Organisation: Bento-style homepage groups services (e.g., Recharge, Bills, Travel, Investments) into collapsible, intuitive sections for less clutter. Larger QR scanner in the footer speeds up real-world payments like at stores.

PhonePe reported strong revenue growth in FY25 (ending March 2025), reaching approximately ₹7,115 crore, up 40% from ₹5,064 crore in FY24.Revenue Breakdown: Payment services dominated at ₹6,300 crore (31-32% YoY growth), driven by transaction fees, platform charges, and ads. Insurance and lending surged over 200% to ₹558 crore, while other segments like stockbroking added ₹57 crore.

Recent PerformanceLosses narrowed 13.5% to ₹1,727 crore in FY25, with adjusted PAT turning positive at ₹630 crore (excluding ESOPs). For H1 FY26 (to Sep 2025), revenue hit ₹3,918 crore. Merchant payments now contribute ~28-31% of revenue, signalling diversification beyond UPI.

PhonePe, the Indian fintech company (often called "Phone Pay"), is currently targeting a valuation of $13–15 billion ahead of its planned IPO in 2026. Valuation Details: The company filed its updated DRHP in early 2026, aiming to raise about $1.5 billion (₹12,000–13,500 crore) through an Offer for Sale by existing shareholders like Walmart and Tiger Global. 

This marks an increase from its last private funding round at $12 billion in 2023. Context and Performance. With 618 million registered users and over 45% UPI market share as of late 2025, the valuation reflects its scale despite remaining EBITDA-negative due to high ESOP costs. Peers trade at lower multiples, making IPO pricing a key focus.

Sameer Nigam's net worth is estimated between ₹3,300–4,100 crore (about $400–500 million USD) as of 2025, primarily tied to his equity stake in PhonePe.Estimation Basis: This figure reflects PhonePe's growth to a $12–15 billion valuation ahead of its 2026 IPO, up from Nigam's reported ₹17.7 crore net worth in 2017. It factors in his founder shares, salary as CEO, and investments in startups like Scapia, Raise, and Bazaar, though exact ownership percentages remain private. Key Influences PhonePe's FY25 revenue of ₹7,115 crore and user base of over 600 million have boosted his wealth, alongside diversified holdings from prior Flipkart roles. Older sources cite lower figures like $17.7 million, but recent analyses adjust upward based on the company's scale.

Sameer Nigam currently holds approximately 2.55% equity stake in PhonePe, as disclosed in the company's updated IPO filing (UDRHP) from early 2026.Stake Details: This reflects his post-sale ownership after he and co-founder Rahul Chari each sold 84.2 lakh shares (worth ~₹1,969 crore each) to General Atlantic in September 2025 at ₹2,338.60 per share.

 Together, Nigam and Chari owned a combined 5.1% stake before the transaction, built largely through ESOPs exercised ahead of the IPO.ContextThe sale was part of a larger $600 million share purchase to help founders and employees cover ESOP taxes, leaving Walmart as the dominant shareholder at ~72%. At PhonePe's targeted $15 billion IPO valuation, Nigam's stake is valued at roughly $382 million (~₹3,200 crore).

Rahul Chari, PhonePe's co-founder and CTO, holds approximately 2.55% equity stake in the company, matching Sameer Nigam's ownership as per the latest disclosures. Ownership Details: This stake was confirmed in PhonePe's updated DRHP filed in early 2026, post a September 2025 share sale where Chari and Nigam each offloaded 84.2 lakh shares (worth ~₹1,969 crore) to General Atlantic to cover ESOP taxes. Before the sale, their combined stake was around 5.1%, built mainly through exercised founder stock options. Valuation Impact: At PhonePe's targeted $15 billion IPO valuation, Chari's 2.55% stake is worth roughly $382 million (~₹3,200 crore)

Burzin Engineer's exact equity stake in PhonePe is not publicly disclosed in available sources, unlike the 2.55% stakes held by co-founders Sameer Nigam and Rahul Chari. Ownership ContextPhonePe's updated DRHP (early 2026) details major shareholders like Walmart (71.77%), General Atlantic (8.98%), and Headstand Pte Ltd (5.73%), but lists only Nigam and Chari among founders with specified holdings. As Chief Reliability Officer and co-founder since 2015, Engineer likely holds founder equity through ESOPs or early shares, though smaller than his co-founders' post-2025 sales. Estimation Notes: No precise percentage appears in IPO filings or reports; his stake may be under 1-2%, valuing ~$150–300 million at a $15 billion company valuation, based on typical founder dilutions.

Burzin Engineer currently serves as Founder and Chief Reliability Officer (CRO) at PhonePe.Role Responsibilities. In this position since December 2015, he oversees the company's web-scale infrastructure, including cloud systems, networks, storage, CDN, and reliability engineering to handle billions of transactions. He leads efforts to ensure 99.99% uptime for PhonePe's payments platform amid massive growth. Tenure ConfirmationRecent sources through early 2026, including PhonePe's site and professional directories, confirm no change in his role ahead of the IPO.

PhonePe built its in-house co-location infrastructure to achieve data sovereignty, cost efficiency, and compliance for high-volume financial services. Hardware Scale: The setup spans three data centres in India (Mumbai, Bangalore, and a hybrid site), managing nearly 700,000–1.04 million CPU cores, 30+ petabytes of storage, and custom hypervisors for Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). ₹3,373 crore invested since 2016 supports active-active replication across sites, handling 500,000+ queries/second with sub-millisecond latencies. Cooling and Efficiency. Advanced Direct Contact Liquid Cooling (DCLC) and Liquid Immersion Cooling (LIC) cut energy use and carbon footprint in large-scale facilities. Server cost per transaction dropped to ₹0.06, enabling faster product launches in regulated areas like insurance while meeting BFSI audits.