Is it true that the valuation of Paytm Mall has dropped to zero?

That is correct, but it is more to do with the price at which Jack Ma of Alibaba and Ant Financial have agreed to exit the Paytm Mall investment. As per the deal, both Jack Ma and Ant Financials have sold their stake in Paytm Mall back to Paytm for Rs42 crore. That effectively means that the indicative valuations of Paytm Mall has fallen from Rs21,000 crore in 2020 to just Rs100 crore in 2022. That is as steep as steep can be.

The valuation of Rs21,000 crore in 2020 is still indicative as it was based on the last round of funding for Paytm Mall. The decision to exit was taken by Jack Ma and Ant Financial due to the burgeoning losses of Paytm Mall. Paytm Mall is the ecommerce front-end platform of the Paytm payment system. The mall is expected to make a strategic comeback on the recently announced government Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) platform.