Online shopping platform
Shopclues.com is in advanced talks to buy mobile payments firm Momoe
Technologies, as it looks to add a payment service to its platform. The all-stock
deal, could value Bengaluru based Momoe at anywhere between $8 Million and $15
Million.
Shopclues was looking to invest
close to $50 Million in either buying stakes or acquiring start-ups in the Hyperlocal,
ad-tech and internet payments domains in order to accelerate expansion in India’s
fast growing e-commerce market. Shopclues will use Momoe Technology to
strengthen its payment network for merchants on its platform and will further
integrate it with its hyperlocal commerce business.
During the past 12-18 months, large
e-commerce firms have made investments, acquisitions and partnerships with
payments companies to claim a share of the digital payments vertical, which helps
reduce the dependency on cash and makes it convenient for online shopping. In February,
Amazon announced acquisition of online payments firm Emvantage Payments Pvt.
Ltd.
Snapdeal acquired mobile wallet
firm FreeCharge in April 2015, and Flipkart bought payments services company FX
Mart Pvt. Ltd in August 2015. Momoe was founded in 2014. The company primarily
provides payment solutions for offline merchants. It allows customers to make
digital payments using the Momoe app on their mobile phones. Momoe rose close
to $1.2 Million from IDG Ventures India, Jungle Ventures and India Quotient. India’s
e-commerce market is estimated to touch $100 Billion by April 2020.
