Ola acquires Foodpanda India Unit

Ola, operated by ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd, has acquired food delivery start-up Foodpanda India from its German Parent Delivery Hero AG in an all-stock deal that will see the ride hailing major infuse $200 Million in Foodpanda India operations. Under the deal, Foodpanda’s India business will be transferred to Ola in exchange for the latter’s stock.

The deal marks Ola’s foray into the online food ordering and delivery segment, a business shaped in India by the likes of Zomato and Swiggy, and one where Ola’s biggest rival, Uber, has been making strides recently through its unit UberEATS. Ola too tested what it called Ola Cafe in 2014, but shut down the unit shortly after. The collaboration between Ola and Foodpanda India unlocks the power of a partnership that will help Foodpanda India grow as the most preferred online food delivery service in the country.

The deal comes months after Bengaluru-based Ola raised a huge $1.1 billion (another $1 billion is likely to come in soon) from SoftBank Group and Tencent Holdings to strengthen its position in India. Mobility start-ups with terabytes of data on local routes and consumer app usage patterns are generally believed to be better placed in running a delivery business. In 2014, San Francisco-based Uber launched UberEATS as a pilot project and has since taken the service to 27 countries—and seven Indian cities in quick succession since May this year.

Foodpanda India was set up as the local unit of Berlin-based Foodpanda GmbH, a Rocket Internet portfolio firm, in 2012. The company has had a tough stint in India, given service quality issues, layoffs and ceding of market share to rivals. Last year, Delivery Hero acquired Foodpanda GmbH but the deal did not have a substantial trickle-down impact on India operations.

Oracle to buy Aconex

Oracle Corp. agreed to buy Aconex Ltd, an Australian company that makes cloud based collaboration software for construction projects, for 1.56 Australian Dollar cash as it tries to gain more customers in the rapidly growing market.

Redwood City, California-based Oracle has been looking to refashion its business around internet-based products. The strategy was dealt a setback last quarter when cloud-computing sales missed analysts’ estimates. The company also gave a disappointing forecast for cloud growth in last week’s earnings report, which sent shares falling the most in three months.

Oracle has been turning to acquisitions to accelerate its shift to the cloud, including last year’s $9 billion purchase of NetSuite Inc. This marks Oracle’s second acquisition of a cloud-based construction software maker so far. Last year, it purchased contract and payment management platform Textura for $663 million and combined it with its own construction management software, called Primavera, to form the Oracle Construction and Engineering Global Business Unit.

Founded in 2000, Aconex currently has offices in 30 countries and says it has been used to manage over $1 trillion in construction projects. The company claims 5.5 million project users, who can manage and communicate about building progress, documents, safety checklists and other issues on desktops or mobile devices. 

Swiggy acqui-hires 48East

Bengaluru based food ordering and delivery startup Swiggy has acqui-hired the management team of Bengaluru based gourmet Asian Food startup 48East in order to further broaden its senior leadership. Following this acqui-hire, the company looks to serve its consumers more efficiently and consequently grow in the market.

Swiggy Access, for the uninitiated, is an initiative aimed at reaching more customers and making its delivery more seamless. Geared towards facilitating the business expansion of partners on the platform, the new service allows restaurant partners to set up kitchen spaces in areas where they do not have a physical presence.

Swiggy currently has a presence in more than 10 cities across the country and claims to have tie-ups with around 20,000 restaurants in these cities. The Bengaluru-based startup has raised a total funding of $155.5 Mn (INR 1000 Cr) till date and clocks over 4 Mn transactions per month on its platform. By acqui-hiring 48East, the online food delivery platform is looking to bolster its presence in the market, amidst competition from highly funded players like UberEATS and Zomato.

Its biggest rival Zomato has also made a number of investments and acquisitions in the last couple of months. In the second of September, the foodtech unicorn took over Bengaluru-based Runnr, a B2B online service provider platform for hyperlocal logistics services. The move was aimed at strengthening Zomato’s food delivery capacity. A week later, the Gurugram-based company also invested an undisclosed amount of funding in the Hyderabad-based foodtech startup, TinMen.

Apple Buys Shazam

Apple Inc. agreed to acquire music-identification service Shazam, taking ownership of one of the first apps to demonstrate the power of the iPhone, recognizing songs after hearing just a few bars of a tune.

Apple Music and Shazam are a natural fit, sharing a passion for music discovery and delivering great music experiences to users. The Shazam app uses the microphone on a smartphone or computer to identify almost any song playing nearby and then point’s users to places they can listen to it in future, such as Apple Music or Google’s YouTube.

While Shazam has been popular with customers, it struggled turning its clever music service into a business that justified its valuation. It expanded beyond simple audio recognition in 2010 by adding capabilities that let television viewers “Shazam” an ad, which would then open a promotion from the advertiser on a user’s device. The company said this feature was used 700,000 times during the 2014 Super Bowl broadcast.

In November, Shazam had about 175 million monthly active users globally across iOS and Android, according to research firm App Annie. The U.S. is the largest single market, with about 20 million active users in November, while the U.K. had about 4 million in the same month. The acquisition would help Apple embed that capability more deeply into its music offerings. The company’s digital assistant Siri gained Shazam integration in 2014, so users could ask it what song is playing in the background.

AEON acquires Acadgild

AEON Learning Pvt. Ltd, which owns education technology platform Avagmah has bought Bengaluru based education start-up Acadgild for $10 Million in an all-stock deal.

Avagmah is a start-up focused on online degrees and skill development programmes. It claims to have 22,000 students across 66 countries, and has partnerships with more than seven institutes and universities. Acadgild offers skill-based technology courses in big data, deep learning and UI/UX design web development, among others. It works with businesses to offer around 35 skill development courses.

Acadgild had raised initial investment from venture capital firm Jupiter Capital and K. Ganesh of GrowthStory. It works with companies like General Electric, Capgemini, Cognizant Technology Solutions, and Oracle Corporation. Currently, around half of AEON Learning’s online students come from Tier-1 and Tier-2 cities like Pune, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Delhi-NCR, Karthik added. The company has raised $6.5 million till date and expects to reach a student base of over 100,000 in the next five years.

According to a KPMG-Google, the online higher education market is expected to touch $1.96 billion by 2021. Re-skilling and online certification courses currently account for a majority (38%) of the online higher education market, the report added. There has also been a surge in investments in the online education sector, with online skill training start-ups shifting focus from a university-based curriculum to a more industry-oriented training approach.

Altran to buy US group Aricent

Altran, a global leader in Engineering and R&D services has entered today through its subsidiary Altran US, into a definitive agreement to acquire Aricent, a global leader in design and engineering services, from a group of investors led by KKR, for a total enterprise value of USD 2.0 Billion in an all cash transaction.

Aricent is a global digital leader in integrated design and engineering services, primarily serving clients of the Communications and Technology, Semiconductor and Software industries. Headquartered in Santa Clara (California), Aricent brings design and engineering capabilities to help its clients get to market faster, transform legacy products to digital, and create new revenue opportunities.

Aricent also has solid experience in shaping large engineering outsourcing deals and key capabilities in key emerging technologies including Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Systems, and Internet of Things and software frameworks. Over the LTM June 2017, Aricent generated revenues of $687m with ca. 10,500 employees and operated through 24 engineering centers and design studios, serving ca.360 clients globally.

This acquisition is expected to generate €150 million of additional revenues translating into €25 million EBITDA run-rate synergies and €25 million of delivery and cost synergies. These synergies are expected to be delivered progressively within 3 years, with implementation costs representing close to 1 year of cost synergies, to be spread over 2018-2019. The deal is expected to be EPS accretive from year one, and double digit accretive when taking into account run-rate synergies.

Lotte Confectionary to buy Havmor Ice Cream

South Korea Lotte Confectionary Co. Ltd will be acquiring Ahmedabad based ice-cream maker Havmor Ice Cream Ltd. for Rs 1,020 Crore. Founded in 1944, Havmor today manufactures 150 kinds of products from two plants and sells from around 30,000 dealers. The company’s ice creams are sold in 14 states.

Havmor Ice Cream Ltd is the seventh largest ice cream and frozen desserts maker in India with a 3.5% market share. The value of the ice cream and frozen desserts segment in India grew 20% in 2016 to reach Rs10,200 crore in sales and is forecast to see a constant value compound annual growth rate of 11% over 2016-21, leading to sales of Rs17,000 crore, as per a December 2016 report by market researcher Euromonitor International.

Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd, which sells the Amul brand, is the leading firm in the ice cream and frozen desserts segment with a 17% market share. HUL is the second largest, with a 9.7% market share, according to the Euromonitor report. The acquisition marks Lotte’s entry into the India ice-cream market and will give the company a larger geographic presence.

Lotte entered India in 2004 and has since then established large scale Choco-pie factories in Chennai and Delhi. Last year, Lotte confectionery reached a market share of 90% in the Indian Choco-pie market. Havmor will continue to operate its signature chain of restaurants and eateries across Gujarat as well as its signature brand and concept café—Huber & Holly.

Web.com acquires Acquisio

Web.com, a leading global provider of Internet Services and online marketing solutions for small businesses has acquired the assets of Acquisio, a leading local business software provider for online advertising management.

Acquisio brings to the table a data science tools platform that increasingly focuses on artificial intelligence and automation.  The platform will be added to Web.com’s other products, which now include templated websites, SEO and domain names.  The transaction price was not announced, although Acquisio has been known to be shopping itself for some time.

The company has invested heavily in technology that helps agencies scale SMB accounts by automating campaigns on major ad platforms, including Google AdWords, Facebook Ads and Bing Ads, and reducing cost per click. Acquisio also brings a healthy number of small and independent agency accounts to the fold. The Montreal headquarters office itself is seen as an asset, as Montreal is emerging as a software hub that specializes in AI.

While Web.com is still known primarily as a provider of inexpensive, templated Web sites, the company has invested heavily in technology companies to expand its offerings and revenue in recent years. These include Yodle in mid-2016, which it acquired for $320 Million and Network Solutions Inc. in mid-2011, which it acquired for $405 Million. Yodle provided programmatic advertising, SEO and CRM solutions for larger SMBs and franchises, while Network Solutions largely provides domain services.

Ebix to acquire travel portal Via.com

Ebix Inc., a supplier of on-demand software and e-commerce services to the Insurance, financial, e-governance and healthcare industries and one of its Singapore subsidiaries agreed to acquire Via.com, an online travel and assisted e-commerce exchange.

The acquisition of Via expands Ebix’s distribution network to over 224,000 outlets in South-east Asia, besides offering significant cross-selling opportunities for Ebix’s EbixCash (earlier ItzCash) Financial Exchange portfolio of products. The transaction values Via at a total enterprise value of approximately $74.9 million.

The company entered the Indian market with the purchase of an 80% stake in ItzCash for Rs800 crore from Essel Group and other shareholders in May. Since the ItzCash acquisition, Ebix has spent an additional $60-65 million in acquiring remittance businesses in the country. The acquisition will boost Ebix’s presence in the travel space, while also allowing for geographic expansion given that Via.com has a significant presence in South-east Asia.

Ebix will consolidate this acquisition into EbixCash to derive synergies and cross-selling opportunities. The Via distribution network encompasses over 85,000 agents in India, 14,700 agents in Indonesia, 9,900 agents in the Philippines, 600 agents in Singapore and 350 agents in the United Arab Emirates and Oman.

Apple buys PowerbyProxi

Apple has acquired a little-known wireless charging company called PowerbyProxi. The company founded in 2007 by entrepreneur Fady Mishriki as a spin out venture from the University of Auckland, specializes in small, Qi standard compliant modules that allow wireless power transfer to larger devices like robots, drones and medical equipment.

Wireless charging allows users to recharge devices by placing them on a pad or other surface rather than inserting them in a cradle or attaching a cable. Apple has been slow to adopt the technology, lagging behind its biggest rival Samsung Electronics and other mobile phone companies that have offered wireless charging in some of their devices for several years.

With the introduction of the iPhone 8, iPhone X, and Apple Watch Series 3 this past September, Apple laid out its vision for a simplified form of charging that works with the Qi industry standard and, at least in part, justifies its removal of the headphone jack and its investments in Bluetooth accessories. To that end, Apple is planning to release a charging mat, due out next year, called the AirPower that will simultaneously charge any glass-backed iPhone and Apple Watch alongside the wireless AirPods earbuds.

It is unclear how exactly PowerbyProxi will help Apple in its ambitions, and whether Apple will shut down the company’s commercial operations. But the New Zealand Company does make wireless charging modules capable of 100-watt power transfers, suggesting Apple could down the line integrate wireless charging technology into larger and more power-hungry devices like the MacBook. 

TeamLease to acquire Evolve Technologies

Human Resources Company TeamLease Services Ltd agreed to acquire Evolve Technologies, a smaller Pune based staffing firm, to enter the specialized telecom staffing space.

This is the second acquisition by TeamLease since July this year. It had acquired Bengaluru-based ASAP Info Systems Pvt. Ltd for Rs67 crore in July. It had then said that the acquisition would help it expand its footprint in the core IT hiring space. The acquisition of Evolve is in line with our long-term strategy of expanding our footprint into specialized areas of staffing.

India’s telecom sector has generated a lot of attention over the last one year after Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd entered the sector. The annual revenue of the telecom sector in India is about Rs2 trillion. It is saddled with a debt of around Rs4.5 trillion. The industry also owes close to Rs3 trillion in spectrum payment charges to the government, according to industry estimates. Evolve, which posted revenue of Rs108.64 crore in financial year 2016-17, will continue to operate as a separate entity following the acquisition.

TeamLease, which has been operating since 2002, mainly offers temping services where it provides temporary workforce to its clients in bulk on a contract. This allows clients to hire without adding to their direct employee base. This employment and business model is closely associated with sectors like manufacturing, banking, BPO and retail, among others. Temping also involves hiring senior level managers on a short-term basis.

Paynear acquires GoSwiff

Payment solutions provider Paynear Technologies Pvt. Ltd has acquired Singapore based mobile commerce firm GoSwiff for an undisclosed amount.

Paynear also raised $5 million from Harvard Business School alumnus Deepak Yadav in March 2016. Yadav is the chairman of Yadu Corporation, which has interests in power generation, sugar, distillation, beverages, software technology, real estate, hospitality, and education.

In December 2015, Paynear raised $2.5 million in pre-Series A funding from serial investor Mitesh Majithia. GoSwiff is a global financial solutions provider, which has subsidiaries in Thailand, Indonesia, Russia, Africa, and the US. The firm is owned by Swiss billionaire and currency ink maker Maurice Amon.

Founded in 2013, Hyderabad-based Paynear helps businesses and merchants make digital payments through mobile point-of-sale devices and an app. Paynear clocked revenues of Rs 33 crore in FY16-17 and a profit of Rs 3 crore, and is targeting revenues of Rs 110 crore in FY17-18 with a marginal EBITDA. GoSwiff posted revenues of Rs 144 crore last year.

Zee Entertainment to acquire 9X Media

Media tycoon Zee Entertainment Enterprise Ltd has agreed acquire 9X Media Pvt. Ltd and its unit INX Music Pvt. Ltd for a total of Rs 160 crore in cash. Zee has signed a pact to buy 9X and INX Music from private equity firm Rivendell PE LLC, earlier known as New Silk Route, and other shareholders.

In a separate transaction, the media company will acquire the 26% stake it doesn’t already own in Zee Turner Ltd from joint venture partners Turner International India Pvt. Ltd for Rs 2.6 lakh. The joint venture was set up in 2001 to distribute Zee and Turner channels but stopped active operations a few years ago. Meanwhile, Zee said it will buy 100% of 9X Media for Rs 155.20 crore and spend Rs 4.80 crore to buy 29.15% of INX Music; 9X Media owns the remaining 70.85% of INX Music. The deal is likely to be concluded within two months.

Zee operates 33 channels while 9X Media runs five music channels—9XM, 9X Jalwa and 9X Bajao in Hindi, 9X Jhakkas in Marathi and 9XO in English—and INX broadcasts Punjabi channel 9X Tashan. The target company’s Bollywood news portal, SpotBoyE, will also be part of the transaction. 9X and INX Music posted consolidated loss Rs 5.1 crore in the year through March 2017 on total revenue of Rs 158.6 crore. This compares with a profit of Rs 11.7 crore on revenue of Rs 176.2 crore the year before.

9X Media, previously known as INX Media, was founded in 2007 by Indrani Mukerjea and housed the Hindi general entertainment channel 9X as well. In 2010, ZEEL bought the said Hindi GEC for Rs 64 crore. The same year, the company changed its name to 9X Media and focused its energies on growing its music portfolio.

Wipro buys Consultancy firm Cooper

India’s third largest IT services company Wipro has acquired US based design and business consultancy firm Cooper, which counts Google and Starbucks as clients, as it looks to strengthen its digital offerings to clients globally.

Cooper, which Wipro is buying for $ 8.5 million (Rs 56 crore), will be integrated with Designit, the digital arm of the Indian firm as CEO Abidali Neemuchwala deepens the company’s expertise in digital offerings and focus on earning higher revenue. Cooper’s founders -Sue Cooper and Alan Cooper will join Wipro to push the company’s aggressive digital strategy. Alan Cooper is considered the ‘Father of Visual Basic,’ and is a prominent player in interaction design, UX and professional design education for more than 25 years.

Wipro also gets access offices in New York and San Francisco with the acquisition. Wipro said Cooper would also help the company expand its reach in North American market and add capabilities in professional design education. Wipro acquired Designit for nearly Rs 595 crore in July, 2015 to add design and digital technology capabilities.

Wipro’s digital arm and Designit currently serve clients from across 16 offices in different markets in the world. The acquisition process is expected to be completed in the October-December quarter of the current financial year, subject to customary closing condition.

Future Group to acquire HyperCity

Kishore Biyani led Future Retail Ltd is set to acquire Shoppers Stop Ltd HyperCity for Rs 700 crore. The deal is expected to combine cash and shares of Future Retail to be given to shareholders of HyperCity, a subsidiary of the listed Shoppers Stop.

HyperCity, a network of high-end grocery and general merchandise retail chain, has yet to turn profitable. It operates 19 stores over a 1.34 million square feet area, according to an investor presentation by Shoppers Stop for the quarter ended June 2017. The company made losses worth Rs 84.73 crore in FY16-17 on revenues of Rs 1,154.57 crore, as per annual report data.

HyperCity also has high debt, worth nearly Rs 400 crore, even as its equity remains low at Rs 11.45 crore, according to data from its latest annual report for FY16-17. However, the company might transfer a part of this debt to Future Group with this sale.

Meanwhile, Future Retail, that owns four major retail brands, will find HyperCity sit somewhere between its existing Big Bazaar departmental store network and Foodhall, a premium upscale gourmet store. It is unclear how HyperCity will be integrated in Future Retail’s clearly defined networks. Big Bazaar has 235 stores in India which have been undergoing an upgrade from a go-to destination for discounts to a lifestyle departmental store.

HomeShop18 acquires Shop CJ Network

Noida based television home shopping network and online marketplace, HomeShop18, the part of Network18 Media & Investments, has acquired a 74% stake in Shop CJ Network. Shop CJ Network is an equal joint venture between private equity investor Providence Equity Partners and Korean firm CJ O Shopping. The deal is said to be anywhere between $27.45 Mn to $30.5 Mn.

With this deal, Providence Equity Partners is also looking for an exit from Shop CJ Network and will sell its stake completely. Shop CJ network, earlier known as Star CJ, was launched in 2009, as a 50:50 joint venture between Star India and CJO Shopping. Later in 2014, Star India sold its stake to Providence Equity Partners for $63 Mn.

Media group Network18 had launched HomeShop18 television channel in April 2008 and its online marketplace HomeShop18.com in January 2011. It is backed by PE firm SAIF Partners with funds managed by OCP Asia. It also counts South Korea’s GS Home Shopping as a strategic investor.

Its revenues are derived from the commission it gets from the sale of products by its vendors through its platforms. It still generates the bulk of its revenues from television shopping business. Now, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) of Mukesh Ambani owns Homeshop18 through the acquisition of Network18 which happened in 2014. During that same year, HomeShop18 also scrapped its proposed $75 Mn public issue, after seven months of filing on the NYSE.

Flipkart acquires F1 Info solutions

India’s leading e-commerce marketplace Flipkart has acquired mobile repair chain F1 Info Solutions as it looks to improve its after sales service offerings to customers on its platform.

Smartphones account for over 50 per cent of the sales (by value) on Flipkart, making it the most important category for the Indian e-tailer. With F1 Info Solutions, the company will gain access to its own chain of service centres across the country. F1 Info Solutions will become a part of Jeeves, a firm that Flipkart invested in 2014. Jeeves specializes in providing after-sales service for large and small home appliances and furniture.

Following the acquisition, Flipkart will be able to monetize its customers across the lifecycle of a product, rather than just at the time of sale. According to the company, F1 Info Solutions has 158 centres and these are located in 135 cities across the country. The firm currently employs around 1,000 people who handle around 50,000 service calls every month. F1 Info is also a certified partner for several global consumer technology majors such as Apple, Samsung, HP, Lenovo, Sony and Asus.

The development comes at a time when the ecommerce giant is gearing up to sell refurbished smartphones ahead of Diwali. According to sources, Flipkart-certified refurbished smartphones will soon be sold on the online marketplace and offline outlets. To that end, the company is looking to team up with distributors for offline sale, as part of a move aimed at lowering high return rates of handsets.

Ebix acquired Paul Merchants

Ebix Inc., the parent firm of digital payments company Itz Cash Card Ltd, has acquired the money transfer business of Paul Merchants Ltd through its Indian affiliate. The deal, valued at $40.7 Million. The acquisition will be done by YouFirst Money Express Pvt. Ltd, which was acquired by Ebix in August 2017.

Paul Merchants is a listed firm offering international money transfer and foreign exchange services. The company’s inward remittance exchange comprises over 20,000 distribution outlets and 165 branches. The firm processes about 6 million transactions every year. It also controls 35% of Western Union’s inward remittance flows into India. Paul Merchants operates as an agent of Western Union and is the largest international remittance firm in India.

While Ebix ItzCash is the largest domestic remittance firm in the country, handling a business volume of $100 million a month, the acquisition of Paul Merchants will serve to consolidate Ebix’s position as the largest international remittance firm in India. Ebix is present in more than 40 countries including Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, New Zealand, Singapore, the US and the UK. The company powers multiple platforms across the world in the field of life, annuity, health, property and casualty insurance, processing over $100 billion in insurance premiums annually.

The transaction will increase the distribution network of Ebix ItzCash as well. ItzCash already has over 75,000 physical retail outlets. After the acquisition is completed, the outlets will number 114,000. ItzCash is a digital payments firm offering payment services like prepaid cards, money transfer and e-wallet to individual customers. The company offers cash management solutions and payment processing services to companies. It also provides services like collection and disbursement management services to the government. ItzCash was acquired by Ebix in May this year for a consideration of Rs800 crore.

Paytm to acquire Travel portal Via.com

Flush with funds from Japan Softbank, digital wallet and e-commerce company Paytm is eyeing another acquisition. The payments firm has held preliminary talks to acquire online travel company via.com. Paytm, which is run by One97 Communications Ltd, is looking to invest close to $80 million to acquire the Bengaluru-based travel portal.

In March this year, the Alibaba-backed Paytm tied up with US-based online travel portal Priceline Group’s Booking.com, to expand its travel business. The company then said it will invest Rs 300 crore to further grow this business and that it is also looking to ramp up its Bengaluru-based travel marketplace team to over 250 people in the next two quarters. Paytm’s travel marketplace enables users to book hotels, flights, trains and bus tickets on a fast, secure and convenient platform. In January 2017, the Noida-headquartered company claimed to have crossed $500 million in annualized gross merchandise value.

Via.com, owned and operated by Flightraja Travels Pvt Ltd, was founded in 2007 as an offline business-to-business travel site. It currently functions as a travel deals aggregator and ticket booking site. Its inventory includes ticketing in flights, hotels, holiday packages as well as car and bus services. The firm had raised $5 million from Indo US Venture Partners (now Kalaari Capital) in 2007 and followed it up with a $10 million round from Sequoia Capital in December 2009.

Following its $200 million funding from Alibaba and SAIF Partners into to its e-commerce arm in March this year and $1.4 billion from SoftBank in May this year, Paytm has been on a multi-pronged expansion drive. It has made a number of investments and acquisitions and effected key appointments, internal movements, and new business strategies. Earlier this month, the company was in talks to acquire deal discovery app Little and online deals startup Nearbuy to strengthen its hyperlocal play.

Zomato acquires delivery startup Runnr

Food technology startup Zomato Media Pvt. Ltd has acquired delivery start-up Runnr as part of a widely expected, all stock deal that would help the former significantly shore up its food delivery business, amid intense competition from rapidly growing rivals such as Swiggy.

The deal also hands out a lifeline to Runnr which has struggled to raise funds in the recent past. It has raised about $20-25 million since it started out in 2015 from investors such as Nexus Venture Partners, Blume Ventures and Sequoia Capital. Runnr was a product of a merger between hyperlocal delivery start-up Roadrunnr and food-ordering start-up TinyOwl.

Goyal said Runnr was already fulfilling about 300,000 orders a month. He added that Runnr founder Mohit Kumar will remain chief executive and will continue to work on the strategic vision for the start-up with the rest of his team. He said the acquired firm will continue to be run independently by Kumar.

Prior to its buyout of Runnr, Zomato used to aggregate restaurants on its platform and works with third-party delivery partners such as Runnr and Grab to execute deliveries. In September 2015, Zomato had picked up a minority stake in Grab (Grab a Grub Services Pvt. Ltd) to bolster its food delivery business.

Paytm to acquire Nearbuy and Little

Paytm, operated by One97 Communications Pvt. Ltd, is in advanced talks to acquire two deals platforms, Nearbuy and Little. The acquisitions of Nearbuy (formerly Groupon India) and Little Internet Pvt. Ltd, both of which offer discount deals at restaurants, salons and commercial establishments, will allow Paytm to boost its presence in the hyperlocal space.

In the past two years, Paytm has been in a hyper-expansion mode. From being a digital payments platform, the Alibaba-backed firm lets user’s book movies, make reservations for hotels and travel. Separately, Paytm’s e-commerce venture Paytm Mall is scaling up rapidly to take on Flipkart and Amazon. Last month, Paytm acquired a majority stake in ticketing platform Insider.in to allow events on Insider.in to show up on Paytm.

Gurugram-headquartered Nearbuy, which broke away from its NASDAQ-listed parent Groupon Inc. in 2015, was scouting for fresh equity. Groupon Inc. had sold some of its majority stake in Nearbuy to Sequoia India—which spent $20 million for the acquisition—as part of an organizational re-shuffle. The firm was subsequently re-branded Nearbuy. In 2016, the firm raised $2.2 million in debt from Blacksoil Capital. But both Nearbuy and its rival Little struggled to expand.

In July 2015, deals discovery app Little, which was started by the founders of fashion label Zovi, raised $50 million from Paytm, SAIF Partners and Tiger Global Management. It then set a target of generating annualized gross sales of $170 million but missed it by a big margin. SAIF Partners is also a large minority investor in Paytm. Paytm, which launched its payments bank in May, raised a mammoth $1.4 billion in equity infusion from SoftBank Group Corp. in the same month. The round valued One97 Communications at $7 billion.