One97 Communications, owner of Indian mobile payments brand Paytm, was tipped to raise up to $2 billion from its latest funding round, with existing backers Ant Financial and the SoftBank Vision Fund expected to make significant investments.

The Economic Times reported the investment round was likely to surpass $1.5 billion, bringing the company’s valuation to $16 billion to 18 billion.

One97 Communications’ primary business is India mobile wallet Paytm and its associated financial services products. The company also sells other app-based services including music streaming, games and event ticketing within India, and has a number of international partnerships and interests.

News of its latest funding round comes days after Xiaomi became the latest big name challenger in India’s mobile payment sector. Other rivals to Paytm include messaging company Hike, Google and Samsung.

WhatsApp, which already has a huge customer base in the country, is also planning to enter the mobile payments market, though its service is yet to go past the beta testing stage.