Infibeam to buy Snapdeal’s Unicommerce

Ahmedabad based Infibeam Incorporation Ltd will acquire Snapdeal’s subsidiary Unicommerce, which offers e-commerce enablement software, in a deal worth up to Rs 120 crore.

Last year, Snapdeal dumped a $950-million takeover offer from Flipkart, with Snapdeal founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal saying the company will pursue a fresh strategy in the Indian market. As a part of this Snapdeal 2.0 plan, it has sold its payment services unit Freecharge to Axis Bank for Rs385 crore, while its logistics arm—Vulcan Express—was acquired by Kishore Biyani’s Future Supply Chain Solutions in an all-cash deal valued at Rs35 crore.

According to Infibeam’s filing, Unicommerce eSolutions had a net worth of Rs24.63 crore and turnover of Rs20.27 crore as on 31 March. Founded in 2012, Unicommerce offers e-commerce enablement software for warehouse management and omni-channel services and has over 10,000 sellers, brands and online retailers as its clients.

Infibeam operates in e-retailing (Products business) through its flagship website infibeam.com and has Web Services business that covers software development services, web development, maintenance through BuildBazar and access to digital payment gateways amongst others.

Axis bank to buy Freecharge

Private sector lender Axis Bank Ltd is nearing a deal to buy digital payments platform Freecharge for Rs 350-400 crore in cash, giving much needed breathing space to Freecharge parent company Snapdeal, which is separately in talks to sell itself to larger rival Flipkart.

By buying Freecharge, Axis Bank will get a popular digital payments brand as well as access to high-quality technology that traditional companies typically struggle to build compared with internet start-ups. Freecharge had also held lengthy talks with Paytm (One97 Communications Ltd) but chose to go with Axis Bank as the bank offered a higher price.

The sale of Freecharge will mark the most stunning collapse in India’s start-up world, even more so than that of its parent company, which has seen its fortunes dip since the start of 2016. Snapdeal bought Freecharge for $400 million in April 2015 in what was then the largest start-up deal in India. Last year, Freecharge hit the market to raise funds separately. Until late January, Snapdeal was confident Freecharge would raise fresh capital at a valuation of $700-900 million.

The Snapdeal founders, and venture capital (VC) firms Nexus Venture and Kalaari Capital have been locked in a boardroom battle that has resulted in Snapdeal and Freecharge passing up funding deals, cutting jobs and being forced to seek buyers. SoftBank disagreed with the others over the firm’s valuation in a potential sale or funding round.

TVS Group acquires CheckGaadi.com

TVS & Sons Group has acquired Bengaluru headquartered CheckGaadi.com, a provider of vehicle inspection technology and CRM solutions. CheckGaadi was founded in January 2015. The startup provides hassle free “vehicle inspection services” for 2-wheelers and 4-wheelers vehicles. It also provides bike-servicing on its platform.

With this move, proprietary technology of CheckGaadi will be transferred to TVS. It will continue business operations as part of TVS. CheckGaadi scaled up to a team size of 30 across 11 major cities serving close to 75,000 customers till date. The CheckGaadi customer engagement solution relies on predictive analytics and machine learning algorithms.

It makes use of vehicle health information to make predictions about its future and automatically determines the best time and context to connect with the customer. On the other hand, the TVS Group is a leading supplier of automotive components. The automobile market in India is pegged at $125 Billion. Out of which, $100 Billion is the estimated share of automobile sale and remaining $25 Billion including services. It is expected to grow at a rate of about 10% to a whopping $225 Billion by 2020.

In May 2017, Mumbai-based online automobile classifieds platform, CarTrade’s parent company MXC Solutions, acquired vehicle inspection and valuation venture Adroit Inspection in an all-cash deal. In June 2017, Gurugram - based used car marketplace Spinny raised $1 Mn Seed funding led by Blume Ventures, Indian Angel Network, and FreeCharge. Other startups that work in this segment apart from CheckGaadi include Droom, CarWale, MahindraFirstChoice, Carnation, CarDekho, CarTrade, along with some classifieds players such as Quikr and OLX.

Voonik acquires app Dekkoh

Voonik Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which operates the fashion app Voonik had acquired styling and personalization app Dekkoh for an undisclosed amount. Dekkoh connects over 200 stylists to consumers seeking fashion advice. It was designed as a fashion discovery platform that allows users to chat with a stylist and buy clothing and accessories that suits them.

Voonik is built around personalized fashion, to provide every customer a solution and opportunity to be fashionable every day. Dekkoh platform is doing the same through an engaged community of stylists and a highly data driven profiling and chatbots. In June, the Bengaluru based company also announced the acquisition of three other start-ups in the fashion space – Zohraa, Styl and Picksilk to enter the premium e-commerce segment.

Before these, Voonik also acqui-hired Trialkart, Getsy and a team from apparel rental start-up Klozee. Voonik runs a lean marketplace business where it operates without inventory and fulfillment centres. It claims to have more than 12 Million registered users, with 10 Million app downloads. On the supply side, it has more than 15 Million products from more than 20,000 sellers.

The company last raised $20 Million in Series B funding led by Sequoia India, Times Internet, Seedfund, Beenos, Beenext, Parkwood Bespin, Tancom Investments and Freecharge.

Ola acquires Qarth

Taxi hailing service Ola, run by ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd, has acquired Mobile payments company, Qarth in an attempt to strengthen its mobile wallet service Ola Money launched in November last year. Qarth, which runs a mobile payments app called X-Pay, is Ola second investment in the payment space.

The move comes at a time when e-commerce leaders such as Flipkart Ltd and Snapdeal are strengthening their payment business through acquisitions. Flipkart acquired a majority stake in payment services startup FX Mart Pvt. Ltd in September last year, while Snapdeal acquired utility payment service company Freecharge for $400 Million in March last year, in the biggest ever consumer Internet deal in India.

Ola Money cannot only be used to make payments for Ola rides, but also for other online platforms such as Online eyewear store Lenskart, hotel aggregator Oyo Rooms, music streaming app Saavn and hyperlocal electronics retailer such as Zopper. Such services throws open an additional revenue stream for Ola, with the ride hailing service still being loss making, and also puts the service in direct competition with bigger rivals such as Paytm and Freecharge.

Ola, which launched food and grocery delivery services last year, shuttered both verticals earlier this month to focus on its core offering of transportation. The move came amid growing competition from Uber, which claims about 50% of the Indian Market. The two companies have rolled out services such as ride sharing, carpooling and even bike taxis and have been slashing fares in an attempt to acquire customers. 

Shopclues to buy Mobile Payments start-up Momoe

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.

Amazon to buy Emvantage Payments

Online marketplace Amazon said it will buy online payments firm Emvantage Payments Pvt. Ltd. to develop India specific payments solution. The announcement comes shortly after Amazon infused an additional Rs. 1696 crore into its India Unit (Amazon Seller Services Pvt. Ltd) in December 2015, to take on local rivals Flipkart and Snapdeal.

Large e-commerce companies have made significant investments, acquisitions and partnerships with payment companies to claim a share of the fast growing digital payments vertical which helps reduce the dependency on cash and make it convenient for online shopping. The Indian e-commerce market is estimated to grow to $100 Million by April 2020. Emvantage employees will join Amazon payments team.

Jasper Info Tech Pvt. Ltd. run online marketplace Snapdeal launched its mobile wallet through its utility payments unit FreeCharge in September 2015. The company had set aside Rs. 1000 crore towards cash back offers and discounts among other initiatives to attract more consumers to FreeCharge Digital Wallet. Snapdeal had acquired FreeCharge for $450 Million in April 2015.

Flipkart had acquired payments services company FX Mart Pvt. Ltd. in August 2015. ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd. cab aggregator Ola had made its Ola Money digital wallet Available for making payments in other e-commerce platforms. 

Snapdeal acquires Letsgomo Labs

Online marketplace Snapdeal.com had acquired Letsgomo Labs, a mobility solutions company. The move is aimed at strengthening its position in mobile commerce as online consumers in India increasingly choose to shop over their phones. Letsgomo was founded by Manav Kamboj and Vikas Banga. Its 76 member team will join Snapdeal and strengthen the organization mobile technology capabilities.

Letsgomo provides mobile technology solutions, design and strategy, besides consulting businesses in conceptualization of applications and mobile sites to implementation and hosting of the mobile platform. The company also works with leading e-commerce companies to help them strengthen their mobile capabilities.

In April, Snapdeal acquired mobile recharge service Freecharge in one of the biggest ever deals in the country start up domain, making Snapdeal one of the largest mobile commerce companies in India. In May, Snapdeal also announced the acquisition of Hyderabad based mobile technology company Martmobi for an undisclosed amount. The platform will help Snapdeal strengthen its mobile platform for sellers.

Snapdeal, promoted by New Delhi based Jasper Infotech Pvt. Ltd., currently gets 75% of its total orders via mobile based transactions. Some of the investors in Snapdeal include Ratan Tata, Softbank, Blackrock, and Temasek, eBay Inc., Premji Invest, Intel Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners.

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.