Vijay Shekhar Sharma Age, Wife, Children, Family, Biography & More

Some Lesser Known Facts About Vijay Shekhar Sharma

• Does Vijay Shekhar Sharma smoke?: Not Known

• Does Vijay Shekhar Sharma drink alcohol?: Yes

• A child prodigy of sorts, Sharma was only 14-years old when he passed his higher secondary education.

• However, while pursuing an engineering course at the Delhi Engineering College (now DTU), he became the butt of jokes in his class because of his “poor English”. Notably, Sharma had completed his school education completely in Hindi and thus had no exposure to the “foreign language”.

• Soon, he realised that if he wanted to make it big in his career, he had to be well-acquainted with the language. Hence, with the aid of Hindi-to-English translation books and second-hand magazines, Shekhar’s quest to learn the language began.

• In an interview, Shekhar revealed that he was always on the ‘extreme sides;’ as far as academics were concerned. At school, he stood among the toppers and always occupied the front seat in his class; however, at college, he was among the least scorers and always occupied the last benches during lectures.

• Inspired by Sabeer Bhatia, the founder of Yahoo, Sharma made internet his playground and began bunking his college lectures to develop something innovative. As a result, he, along with his friends, made a unique content management system, which went on to be utilised by some of the biggest news publications in the country; including ‘The Indian Express’.

• After graduating from college, Sharma joined an MNC. Despite getting some good bucks there, he left the company after only six months to start a business venture of his own.

•  His first business project; however, saw a plethora of obstacles because of his business partners, who reportedly conned off 40% of the ₹8 Lakhs that he had raised via the first round of funding in 2005.

• A few years later, Shekhar began one97 communications, the parent company of Paytm. One97; however, was initially planned to target three areas of internet- Content, Commerce, and Advertising. A “payment ecosystem” was integrated later and thus was born Paytm (Pay Through Mobile), which popularised the trend of mobile wallets in India.
  

  Vijay Shekhar Sharma one97 communication

• Notably, Jack Ma led Alibaba group is the biggest investor in Paytm.
  

  Vijay Shekhar Sharma With Jack Ma

• As of May 2017, Paytm’s valuation is estimated at $7 billion. 

• Owing to the demonetisation of ₹500 and ₹1000 currency notes; Paytm’s traffic increased by 435%, app downloads grew 200%, and a 250% rise in overall transactions and transaction value was seen at the end of November (2016).
  

• Interestingly, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Paytm Founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma were the only two Indians, who made it to the list of “Time’s 100 most influential people in the world” list.
  

  Vijay Shekhar Sharma With Narendra Modi

• With a net worth of around $1.3 billion, Sharma was the youngest Indian billionaire (1567th position overall) on the Forbes 2017 list of billionaires.

• Although he is not fond of wearing a watch, Sharma, in an interview, said that he would buy a “Rolex;” once the valuation of his company reaches $10 billion.

• India Today Magazine placed him at #18 on “India’s 50 Most powerful people of 2017” list.

• On 26 February 2024, Vijay stepped down as the part-time non-executive chairman of Paytm Payments Bank Limited (PPBL). ^[1]Hindustan Times In January 2024, the RBI imposed some restrictions on PPBL, directing it to stop accepting deposits or top-ups after 15 March.