 "Vijay Shekhar Sharma")
Paytm founder and chief executive Vijay Shekhar Sharma, during a Reddit Ask Me Anything forum on Wednesday evening, admitted there might have been a valuation bubble and it was getting difficult to raise funds. “Next round (of funding) for everyone is getting tougher. Smart ones raised money in time,” he wrote.
Replying to questions on financials, Sharma said Paytm had made profits in the past two weeks but didn’t comment on whether or not it would post positive cash flows.
“Profit is not a short-term aim, dominance is. So, maybe after next year,” he said. He announced the company was bringing in place a rating system for sellers to weed out “bad blood”.
Paytm has been trying hard to make up ground to bridge the gap between other e-commerce players such as Amazon and Flipkart and said it would be adding features such as wish lists to give customers a familiar interface.
The company could not offer bitcoin support as the government of India doesn’t allow the digital currency, Sharma said.
Paytm had started banning users for misuse of free codes. “We purged more than five million users,” he said. On net neutrality, a favourite subject on every internet forum, Sharma was clear: “Net must be 100 per cent neutral. No side lanes.” The company, he hinted, was working on making Paytm payments on app stores and was trying to tie up with the likes of Google Wallet soon.
Little, a hyperlocal deal discovery app, on Wednesday announced that it had added Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Alok Goel from Saif Partners on its board.
And in true Reddit style, Sharma was asked if he preferred the burger or vada pav. No points for guessing, he chose the desi dish.
