Snapdeal acquires FreeCharge

India’s largest online marketplace, Snapdeal has acquired FreeCharge, India’s fastest growing mobile transaction platform. This is one of the biggest acquisitions in the history of Internet industry in India and sets up Snapdeal to build the most impactful digital commerce ecosystem in India.

With this acquisition, Snapdeal becomes the largest mobile commerce company in India offering the widest range of products and services, including financial services, mobile recharge and utility payments with an exponentially growing user base of over 40 Million. FreeCharge is India’s leading mobile ecommerce platform where users can pay their mobile DTH and utility payments across most major operators.

Every day 75 Million mobile recharges are done in India by a section of India’s 800 Million mobile phone subscribers. FreeCharge offers a convenient and efficient solution applicable to hundreds of millions of consumers for paying utility bills, and especially doing mobile recharges, which often ends up being the first e-commerce transaction that a consumer does online given the ticket size and instant gratification.

FreeCharge will continue to function as an independent platform and all aspects of FreeCharge Shopping experience will remain intact. The companies will collaborate to offer a seamless shopping experience to customers across both the platforms offering an even wider range of products and services. Over the past six months, Snapdeal has acquired Exclusively.in, Doozton, and Wishpicker. Snapdeal also picked up a majority stake in digital financial services platform RupeePower.com.

Snapdeal to buy Unicommerce

Unicommerce eSolutions Pvt. Ltd is an e-commerce management software and fulfillment solution provider is in talks to buy with Snapdeal for a potential acquisition. New Delhi based Unicommerce, which currently provides its software to companies such as Myntra, Snapdeal, Jabong, Groupon, and Healthkart, has received investment from Nexus Venture Partners and Snapdeal founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal.

Three Indian Institute of Technology founded Unicommerce in 2012, Delhi graduates Ankit Pruthi, Karun Singla, and Vibhu Garg. The company offers a pay per use Web Based solution that helps small merchants and e-commerce companies manage orders from the time they are placed until products are delivered. The company flagship product, Uniware, updates and automates every aspect of online commerce beginning from when a customer places an order until the purchase is received.

It also helps companies manage everything from vendors to inventory, and from warehouse to shipments and returns. Unicommerce was also in talks with Tiger Global for a potential investment. After the deal, Unicommerce is expected to operate as a separate company. As per experts, companies would be apprehensive about sharing their data with Unicommerce if it becomes a part of Snapdeal.

For Snapdeal, 2014 has been active year with respect to acquisitions. The company this month announced acquisition of gifting recommendation technology platform Wishpicker.com for an undisclosed amount. The company has so far acquired five companies including Doozton, a social product discovery technology platform; Grabbon.com, eSportsBuy.com, and Shopo.in. However, if Snapdeal inks the deal, it will be its largest acquisition until date.

Snapdeal acquires Wishpicker.com

After raising USD 627 Million from Japan Softbank online marketplace Snapdeal.com, owned by Jasper InfoTech Pvt. Ltd. has acquired gifting recommendation technology platform Wishpicker.com for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition of Wishpicker comes seven months after Snapdeal acquired Doozton, a social product discovery technology platform. Wishpicker is Snapdeal fifth acquisition. The company had earlier acquired Grabbon.com, esportsbuy.com, and shopo.in.

Wishpicker offers gifting options based on different parameters like relationship with recipient, their age, and personality. The current acquisition enables Snapdeal to enter into the personalized gift segment. Wishpicker brings with it an edge to the premier market place. Snapdeal, an intelligent recommendation user experience is helping users to discover the unique gift ideas from across the internet. Users can also find gift suggestions based on a person’s social media activities like Facebook “likes” and other interests listed on social media.

With over 30 million members and more than 50,000 sellers, Snapdeal.com delivers products to 5,000 cities and towns in India. Snapdeal has received funding from several global marquee investors like Softbank, Blackrock, Temasek, eBay, Premji Invest, Intel Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Ratan Tata, Nexus Venture Partners, and Kalaari Capital.

Snapdeal currently claims to offer more than five million products across 500 plus categories on its platform. The firm aims to expand its merchant base to one million in the next three years. Online retail is valued at $3.1 Billion and is estimated to grow to $22 Billion in five years. Snapdeal has now become one of the fastest growing and among the top three online marketplaces in India.