Amazon Pay to acquire Tapzo

Amazon India Payment arm, Amazon Pay, has acquired Bengaluru based and Sequoia backed startup Tapzo, as the e-commerce giant attempts to aggressively ramp up its payments business and get a bigger slice of India’s booming digital payments economy, currently dominated by the likes of Paytm.

Prior to its acquisition, Tapzo counted the likes of Sequoia Capital and American Express Co. among its investors, and had raised over $20 million since it started out in 2009. In its current avatar, Tapzo allows users to access over 35 apps, including the likes of Flipkart, Amazon, Uber and Ola, among others.

Founded in 2009 as a complaint redressal forum called Akosha, the service was rebranded and launched as Helpchat. Helpchat started out as a personal assistant platform with a chatting feature, but even that pivot proved unsuccessful for Singla and the rest of his team. Eventually, Helpchat was pivoted and re-launched as an all-in-one platform, Tapzo, in November 2016.

Amazon separately launched a new bill payments service, which will enable prepaid and postpaid bill payments through its Amazon Pay wallet. As part of the new service, Amazon has forged tie-ups with hundreds of billers for electricity, mobile and broadband bill payments, among others.

Cognizant to acquire SaaSfocus

Cognizant will acquire SaaSfocus, a provider of Salesforce consulting services, for an undisclosed amount as the IT major looks to further strengthen its business in the Indian and Australian markets.

SaaSfocus which is privately held offers digital transformation services leveraging the Salesforce platform. It has over 350 Salesforce consultants in Australia and India. The acquisition will help expand Cognizant’s end-to-end digital transformation services and Salesforce cloud capabilities in the region, including India and Australia. Cognizant already offers a wide range of Salesforce solutions.

Combining Cognizant global capabilities, deep domain expertise and digital solutions with SaaSfocus specialized Salesforce consulting competencies will help SaaSfocus accelerate clients digital transformation journeys. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2018, subject to certain closing conditions.

Flipkart buys AI startup Liv.ai

India’s largest e-commerce firm Flipkart has acquired artificial intelligence (AI) startup Liv.ai, which has built a platform that translates speech to text in 10 Indian languages. The acquisition comes at a time when large online retail firms are doubling down and investing heavily on getting access to the next 100 million Internet users in tier-2 and tier-3 cities and towns across India.

After the acquisition is completed, Liv.ai will be integrated into Flipkart Center of Excellence for Voice Solutions, as it looks to leverage the startup’s technology and build its capabilities around so-called conversational shopping. For Flipkart, this buyout is crucial as it potentially helps the online retailer overcome the language barrier problem, an issue faced by most leading consumer internet companies.

Flipkart’s arch-rival Amazon.com Inc. has also bet on voice and speech-recognition technology globally and come out with new offerings in the form of AI-powered virtual assistant Alexa. Liv.ai is one of a handful of startups to build technology that converts speech to text in 10 Indian languages that include Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi, Marathi, Gujarati, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam. Prior to being sold to Flipkart, the startup had raised funding from investors such as Astarc Ventures.

Pepsi to buy SodaStream

PepsiCo Inc. agreed to buy SodaStream International Ltd for $3.2 Billion to gain the Israeli company’s at home soft-drink making technology. PepsiCo will pay $144 a share in cash. 

The move is widely seen as an effort by Pepsi to prop up its catalog of “healthy” food and drink options as it continues to wage battle against longtime rival Coca-Cola. Both PepsiCo and Coca-Cola have invested heavily in both healthier and eco-friendly alternatives over the past decade.

The purchase will probably be the last big move by PepsiCo chief executive officer Indra Nooyi, who said this month she’s stepping down as head of the beverage company after 12 years in the job. The purchase of SodaStream comes as the company’s North American beverage unit is stagnating amid a general decline in soda consumption.

SodaStream has been the focus of controversy in the Middle East. Protesters claimed victory when the company closed a factory in the West Bank in 2014, which the opponents said was part of Israel’s illegal occupation of the territory. SodaStream has argued that boycotts and protests have hurt Palestinians more than helped them.

Girnar Software acquires PowerDrift

Jaipur based Girnar Software Pvt. Ltd, which owns auto portals CarDekho.com, BikeDekho.com and Gaadi.com has acquired automotive content YouTube channel PowerDrift for an undisclosed amount.

Owned and operated by PowerDrift Studios Private Limited, the YouTube channel uploads videos reviews of cars and motorcycles. The channel has about a million subscribers today. PowerDrift claims to have generated 240 million lifetime views on its channel, with an average of 200,000 views per video.

Girnar Software, founded in 2007 also owns TyreDekho.com and BuyingIQ.com (online shopping adviser). In 2014, Girnar had acquired Naspers Group-owned Gaadi.com. It also bought Zigwheels.com from Times Internet in September 2015. The same year, it invested $1 million in edu-tech startup CollegeDekho.

Besides Gaadi.com and Zigwheels.com, Girnar Software acquired several other companies. These include Drishya360s (virtual reality), Volob Technologies (AR-VR focused visual communications), Connecto (SaaS start-up), Help on Wheels (roadside assistance), Valueserve Management Consultants Pvt. Ltd (consulting firm), and Advanced Structures India (car-testing and benchmarking firm).

Paytm buys savings management app Balance

Paytm, the digital payments provider run by One97 communications Pvt. Ltd, has acquired savings management application Balance Tech for an undisclosed sum. t will help enhance Paytm’s user and merchant interface.

Bengaluru-based Balance Technology Pvt. Ltd helps users invest in debt mutual funds, allowing them to earn interest up to 8.7% per annum, without a lock-in period. SoftBank and Alibaba-backed Paytm last month bought New Delhi-based technology start-up Cube26 for an undisclosed amount along with ticketing platform Ticket New for $40 million in May this year.

Founded in 2015, Balance had raised ₹1.5 crore from Bengaluru-based Rainmatter Technology, a fintech fund and incubator managed by stock broking firm Zerodha last year.

Foodpanda in talks to buy Holachef

Foodpanda, the online food ordering and delivery marketplace owned by Ola, is in advanced talks to buy Mumbai based food tech startup Holachef Hospitality Pvt. Ltd, which shuttered operations nearly three months ago. Foodpanda will acquire Holachef Staff, brand name and kitchen equipment.

A potential acquisition would be the second within a year for Ola, India’s largest taxi aggregator. Last December, the company, run by ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd, bought Foodpanda from its German parent. A potential deal signals Ola’s aggressive expansion to compete in the online food ordering and delivery segment alongside players like Swiggy (Bundl Technologies Pvt. Ltd), Zomato (Zomato Media Pvt. Ltd) and the recent entrant UberEats India.

Founded in 2014, Holachef, which delivers home-cooked food to customers, closed operations in April. The startup’s Twitter handle is flooded with customer queries about its sudden absence from delivery platforms. Holachef, which was operational in Mumbai and Pune, had raised ₹ 2 crore from diamond merchant Ashok Kumar in February this year. The company backed by Ratan Tata, Kalaari Capital and venture capital fund India Quotient has raised $9.6 million cumulatively till date.

Ola was also exploring creating an independent food technology company on the lines of Flipkart’s model and was in talks to buy food brand FreshMenu (Foodvista India Pvt. Ltd) along with another private label. Holachef joins the likes of Gurugram-based Twigly that three weeks back shut operations after being in business for three years. Among other food-tech businesses, Spoonjoy (acquired by grocery delivery firm Grofers), TinyOwl, Yumist and Dazo had to shut shop as raising funds amid immense competition became increasingly difficult.

Cisco to buy cyber security firm Duo

Cisco systems Inc. will buy Duo Security, a venture capital backed cyber security company for $2.5 Billion in cash, as it seeks to expand its offerings in cloud computing.

The deal is the biggest acquisition for Cisco since its $3.7 billion purchase of business performance monitoring software company AppDynamics last year, and it’s largest in the cyber security sector since its $2.7 billion takeover of Sourcefire in 2013.

Duo’s platform allows users to verify their identity with a two-step authentication and its investors include Index Ventures, Workday, Redpoint Ventures and True Ventures. Cisco, the world’s largest networking gear maker, has been making efforts to transform itself into a software-focused company.

With its traditional business of making switches and routers struggling, Cisco has been focusing on high-growth areas such as security, the Internet of Things and cloud computing.

Swiggy acquires Scootsy

Food ordering and delivery platform Swiggy has acquired Scootsy, an intracity delivery service provider in an all-cash deal. Scootsy provides delivery service for restaurants, toys & beauty products and electronics items among others.

Scootsy is a well-loved brand that enjoys loyalty from both its restaurant partners and the consumer. With a shared belief of providing a superior user experience, its addition will extend the convenience and reliability that Swiggy is synonymous. Swiggy will strengthen Scootsy curated restaurant network and help the brand expand to newer cities using Swiggy operational strength. Scootsy will continue to operate as an independent app post the acquisition.

For Swiggy, the acquisition of Mumbai-based Scootsy is in line with its vision to provide a superior consumer experience and the widest restaurant choices for consumers. It will extend the breadth and selection of Swiggy existing network of 40,000 restaurants by adding more curated restaurants to it. Scootsy was founded in 2015. Last year, it raised $3.6 million from Agnus Capital and Khattar Holdings.

The acquisition will enable Scootsy expansion across Mumbai and also support its foray into four to five major Indian cities in the coming months. Swiggy, which started in August 2014, is one of the fastest Indian start-ups to reach a valuation of $1 billion. In June, Swiggy announced that it has raised $210 million from a group of investors, led by Naspers and billionaire Yuri Milner’s DST Global. The fund raise valued Swiggy at about $1.3 billion.