Oyo Hotels acquires Innov8

Oyo Hotels and homes, the world’s third-largest chain of hotels, homes, managed living and workspaces has confirmed its acquisition of Innov8, a co-working spaces provider, highlighting the company’s increasing focus on the fast-growing segment.

Charting out its multi-brand approach to the workspace’s opportunity in India, Oyo introduced three co-working brands under Oyo Workspaces: Innov8, Powerstation and Workflo for upper mid-scale, mid-scale and economy segments, respectively.

 

OYO Workspaces is set to open the door to its more than 21 workspaces, with over 15,000 seats across more than 10 cities in India, it said in a statement. Of these, Innov8 is currently spread across six cities—Delhi, Noida, Gurugram, Bengaluru, Chandigarh and Mumbai, with 16 centres hosting over 6,000 employees of brands like Swiggy, Paytm, Pepsi, Nykaa, OLX and Lenskart. Powerstation has one centre in Gurugram with over 1,000 seats and Workflo has set up four centres across NCR, Hyderabad and Bengaluru with a hosting capacity of over 1,500 seats in total already.

Oyo pegs co-working spaces to be a $20 billion business opportunity in India by 2020. Oyo’s entry into the workspaces business comes at a time when India is already seeing the emergence of several large companies in this segment, including the likes of WeWork India, CoWrks, Awfis and Smartworks.

Paytm buys Nightstay

Digital payment company Paytm has launched domestic hotel bookings on its platform and has acquired last-minute hotel bookings app Nightstay to expand its travel business. The company will invest upwards of Rs 500 crore for scaling the hotel booking business and expanding its portfolio.

Nightstay Travels Pvt. Ltd was founded in 2015. It procures unsold inventory from hotel owners at a discount and offers the rooms under three categories – boutique, business class and luxury class hotels. It operates on dynamic pricing for partner hotels with inventory being made available for booking every morning. Users can book their stay for up to three days at one go and avail the last-minute deal. It works with hotels in 12 cities across the country.

Paytm aims to leverage Nightstay to expand its portfolio in this vertical. Nightstay had raised an undisclosed amount in a pre-Series A round led by the Indian Angel Network and LetsVenture in May 2017. In August 2015, it had raised $500,000 in a seed round from Bedrock Venture Management Pvt. Ltd.

Paytm Travel, started in 2014, claims to sell over 60 million tickets a year, and offers rail and bus tickets, and flight bookings. Earlier this year, Paytm Travel also started offering foreign exchange bookings for international travellers. The company said it has partnered with over 5,000 hotels across the budget, luxury and business segments. Its partner hotels include Zuri, Sarovar, Treebo, Vresorts, Sterling, Ginger and Bloomrooms.

Byju acquires US based Osmo

Online tutoring start-up Byju’s has acquired US based playful learning system Osmo for $120 Million. The acquisition, Byju’s first ever of a US company, will help the Indian start-up expand into a new younger demographic of kids between 3 and 8, and allow it to tap into Osmo’s physical-to-digital technology and content.

Byju’s has aggressive plans for the international market and will continue to make big investments in technology to further personalize learning for students. It has been growing at 100% over the past three years and is on target to triple revenue to Rs 1,400 crore this year.

Just last month, Byju’s raised $540 million at a valuation of $3.6 billion, as robust investor demand swelled the size of its latest funding round and turned the founder of the eponymous start-up into an overnight billionaire. That funding round put Byju’s fourth on the list of India’s most valuable start-ups, after digital payments firm Paytm (One97 Communications Ltd), cab-hailing service Ola and budget hotel chain Oyo Rooms.

The focus at Byju’s has been on creating engaging, immersive content offered through personalized learning experiences to students across grades. Osmo’s use of mixed reality interactions can help it expand its platform to new audiences and applications. Launched in 2015, the Byju’s Learning App currently offers personalized programs for school students across grades 4-12. It has over 2 million annual paid subscriptions and 30 million students cumulatively learning from the app.

MobiKwik acquires ClearFunds

Digital payments company MobiKwik has acquired online mutual fund platform ClearFunds as it pivots towards a complete fin-tech company facing tough competition from market leader Paytm, owned by One97 Communications Ltd.

Founded in 2016, Clearfunds (Harvest Fintech Private Limited) is an online mutual fund advisory platform that claims to use data science and analysis to help investors make informed and profitable investment decisions. It claims to have $45 million in assets under management (AUM).

MobiKwik, which has a customer base of 100 million, will now sell only direct plans on its platform that comes without distributor commissions. Paytm Money, the new wealth management unit of One97 Communications Ltd, entered the mutual fund market with its own application in April this year.

The Gurugram-headquartered company will invest $15 million in its wealth management category in the next year to take on competitors like Paytm, which in turn is reportedly looking to offer shares of listed companies directly to customers. MobiKwik recently entered digital lending services by offering 90-second loans to its users in a bid to compete with Soft-bank backed Paytm.

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.

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.

Paytm buys Cube26

One97 Communications Ltd which owns payments app Paytm announced the acquisition of New Delhi based technology startup Cube26. The acquisition will help the company upgrade user experience over its mobile platform.

Cube26 develops customized Android OS for original equipment manufacturers, and it is currently building a games and apps store by connecting India-based developers directly with smartphone users. The app store also helps developers monetize their content.

Cube26 is backed by Tiger Global Management and Flipkart. It had raised $7.7 million from both investors in 2015. The start-up was founded in 2012. The acquisition comes just days after Paytm claimed to have 120 million monthly active users on its in-app messaging feature called ‘Paytm Inbox’. The company also said that it will focus more on regional content for making its app more popular across small cities and towns.

Paytm had also made two acquisitions in recent months. In December 2017, Paytm acquired Nearbuy and Little, two platforms that focus on local restaurants and commercial establishments. Paytm later merged both entities and made an undisclosed investment into the resultant entity.

Paytm acquires TicketNew parent Orbgen Technologies

Digital payments giant Paytm has acquired Orbgen Technologies Private limited, the entity that operates TicketNew, a Chennai based online ticketing platform. With the acquisition, Paytm is seeking to connect its more than 300 Mn customers to TicketNew partner cinemas and further invest in helping grow their occupancy and revenues.

Paytm claimed that its entertainment arm has increased its online penetration in India by more than 50%. The company has also built a strong business in south India and is working exclusively with iconic single screen theatres and regional multiplex chains including Suresh Productions, V Celluloid, SVC, and Anusri Cinemas among others in the region.

Inc42 had earlier reported that the digital payments giant was inching towards advanced talks with the Alibaba Pictures-owned TicketNew to acquire the company. The value of the deal was pegged at $30 Mn-$40 Mn. Alibaba Pictures, the entertainment arm of Chinese Internet giant Alibaba Group, had acquired a majority stake in TicketNew on June 5, 2017, making the acquisition its first outside China in the Internet ticketing industry.

Prior to this, Paytm Entertainment had a ticketing partnership with SPI Cinemas, which owns landmark properties such as Sathyam Cinemas, Le Rêve, and The Cinema, in Chennai, Hyderabad, and Mumbai.

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.

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.

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.

BookMyShow acquires Burrp

Online entertainment ticketing firm BookMyShow (BMS) has acquired Burrp, a Mumbai based local restaurant recommendation engine, from Network 18. The acquisition is being carried out on a slump sale basis by Foodfesta Wellcare, an arm of Big Tree—an associate firm of Reliance Industries, which is also the promoter group company of Network18.

Burrp is India’s oldest food-tech business and currently lists over 56,000 restaurants across 12 cities. Burrp revenue during the 2016-17 fiscal year was Rs56.67 lakh accounting for 0.69% of Network18’s turnover. The net worth as on 31 March 2017 stood at a negative Rs28.89 crore.

It further said considering the “insignificant contribution” of Burrp to revenue and the investments and the focus required to be made, Network18 had decided to divest the Burrp business. The transaction is at arms’ length basis and being a slump sale does not have any impact on the shareholding pattern of the company.

Founded in 2006, Burrp was a prominent player in the restaurant discovery space until it lost ground to competitor Zomato. BookMyShow has been focusing on transforming into a complete entertainment destination as it faces competition from new players like Paytm.

Zaggle acquires Pennyful

Hyderabad-based Zaggle Prepaid Ocean Services Pvt. Ltd, which operates digital payments and cashback company Zaggle, has bought online coupons firm Pennyful in a cash and stock deal. The acquisition will help Zaggle offer benefits to consumers and corporate employees, and develop technology products and solutions.

Zaggle is moving towards an omni-channel marketing platform following the acquisition of Pennyful. Zaggle, over a period of five years, has built a huge repertoire of business-to-business clients. The focus is on the business-to-business-to-consumer market of over 25 million [customers], and we want to create more and more value for this set of consumers.

Bengaluru-based Pennyful Online Pvt. Ltd was founded in 2011 in the US. The firm entered the Indian market in November 2012. The cashback and coupons company has 1,000 brands and claims to have customers from more than 800 cities. Zaggle was founded in 2011 and currently has six offices across India with over 1,000 corporate clients and over 1,500 merchants on board.

Other players in the deals segment include Nearbuy, mydala, CouponDunia and CashKaro, among others. Last month, online deals startup Couponhaat raised pre-Series A investment from Austria-based angel investor Axel Wawrina. In November 2016, rewards app Kloseby, which helps users earn rewards when visiting stores, raised $100,000 (around Rs 68 lakh) in seed investment.

Paytm acqui-hires Shopsity

Paytm, India’s largest mobile payments and commerce platform has acquired the team at Shopsity, a Delhi based startup that offered O2O solutions to small retail stores. This move is in line with Paytm vision to create strong seller focused services to its offline merchants.

Shopsity is focused on small unorganized retailers, providing them with tools to attract and retain customers. Paytm is actively working to strengthen seller services for the 800,000 strong offline sellers on the Paytm ecosystem. Launched in March 2015, Shopsity is an O2O mobile platform, where you get to see what’s selling in stores nearby. During July last year, the platform had raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Shopclues and Droom, and Netprice.

In July, Paytm started accepting payments at retail chains like Spencer’s Retail, Heritage Fresh, More, WH Smith, Kendriya Bhandar, V2 Retail, Value Plus and Pai International (Pai Mobile). This followed its tie-up with quick-service-restaurants such as KFC, Pizza Hut, Cafe Coffee Day, Costa Coffee, Barista, Vaango, among others. Paytm claims to have 125 million wallets.

In September, Paytm had acqui-hired EduKart, an e-learning marketplace for an undisclosed amount. In January this year, Paytm acquired Shifu, a consumer behavior prediction platform for an undisclosed amount. A month before that, the company acquired Gurgaon-based services marketplace Near.in for $2 million.

Paytm buys Edukart

Payment service provider Paytm (One97 Communications Ltd) has bought education technology start-up Edukart, backed by cricketer Yuvraj Singh and Paytm founder after it failed to raise new funds. The purchase, whose value wasn’t disclosed, is a so called acquihire – or buying out a company primarily for the skills and expertise of its staff.

Edukart aggregated courses offered by other education technology startups such as Byju’s, Simplilearn, Edureka and Toppr, coaching institutes such as Aakash Institute, Vidyamandir Classes and Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University, Annamalai University, National Institute of Management and Technology and University of Mysore among others.

The company raised $2 Million in three rounds from Kima Ventures, AKM Systems, Stanford Alumni, Paytm’s Sharma, WaterBridge Ventures, Yuvraj Singh YouWeCan Ventures, early stage fund 500 startups, angel United Finsec, the family office of hologram maker Holostik Group. According to industry expert, while Edukart startups may boast of a large user base, they might struggle to make users pay for the content.

Since 2015, Paytm has either invested in or bought at least five firms. It has bought consumer behavior prediction and recommendation platform Shifu and home services provider Near.in, apart from investing in online auto-rickshaw aggregator Jugnoo, logistics data start-up LogiNext and deal discovery app Little. 

Jugnoo acquires SabKuchFresh

On demand auto-rickshaw aggregator Jugnoo has acquired SabKuchFresh for an undisclosed amount to strengthen its recently launched grocery delivery service ‘Fatafat’. The acquisition comes after Chandigarh based Jugnoo raised $10 Million in Series B funding from mobile payments and commerce platform Paytm, Snow Leopard and Rocketship.vc in April.

This is a step towards helping the auto drivers to supplement their livelihood through extra earnings. Jugnoo also intends to create a logistics network for the mass market of India and wants to tap the hyper-local delivery service space through best possible routes. SabKuchFresh, an online store of fruits and vegetables has a tie-up with more than 100 farmers has a strong network of B2B and B2C users.

Jugnoo was launched in November 2014 and its auto-rickshaw aggregation service is now present in 29 cities and has a user base of 120 Million. Jugnoo operates three apps, the auto-rickshaw aggregation service Jugnoo Autos, food delivery service Jugnoo meals and hyperlocal delivery service Jugnoo Fatafat. The company is looking to strengthen its businesses.

Jugnoo had earlier acquired online Taxi booking platform BookMyCab in a cash and stock deal in July last year. The company raised $5 Million in Series A funding from Snow Leopard Technology Ventures and Paytm in July last year, $5.5 Million in a series B 1 round in January this year.

Innerchef acquires EatOnGo and Flavour Labs

Food technology start-up Innerchef, which operates in the ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat meals segment has acqui-hired two food startups, Flavour Labs in Gurgaon and EatOnGo in Bengaluru, signaling further consolidation in the food tech segment starved of cash after investors clawed back on investments late last year.

Acqui-hiring is essentially done for the target company talent pool more than its products and services. The acquisition of Flavour Labs, a food truck company, will help Innerchef enter the mobile kitchen segment, while EatOnGo, which specializes in breakfasts, will help the company expand its presence in Bengaluru. EatOnGo was launched in May 2015 while Flavour Labs started its operations in 2014.

In September last year, Innerchef had raised Rs. 11 Crore in a pre-series A funding round from a clutch of investors including redBus and Paytm founders. Apart from ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat meals, Innerchef operates a Hyperlocal marketplace for desserts sourced from home bakers and bakeries in Delhi, Gurgaon and Bengaluru.

Several food tech start-ups have shut shop following a slowdown in investment while some have been acquired by well capitalized rivals. While Internet first kitchen SpoonJoy was bought by Hyperlocal delivery startup Grofers, another startup Dazo shut shop the same month. Bigger Businesses such as Zomato and TinyOwl have pruned their workforce last year.

Paytm acquires Shifu

Payments service provider Paytm, run by One97 Communications Pvt. Ltd, has acquired consumer behavior prediction and recommendation platform Shifu for $8 Million. Delhi based Shifu, run by Signal Inc. started operations in August 2012. It mines the smartphone usage patterns of users and makes personalized recommendations to them.

Shifu has been quite popular as an intelligent task managing application. This acquisition will give further impetus to focus on Artificial Intelligence. By predicting user behavior based on past usage, location and other data points, Paytm platform will be able to offer relevant recommendations to users. Paytm will be able to offer a highly intuitive and personalized experience to users.

Shifu is a free task managing app. Once the app is installed, it analyses the usage patterns of the device owner and makes a variety of suggestions based on a predictive algorithm. Paytm has been actively investing in startups. The company in October invested in transportation app Jugnoo, in Hyperlocal deals platform ‘Little’ in July, and in logistics startup LogiNext.

Noida based Paytm currently has a user base of more than 100 Million. The company is backed by investors including Alibaba Group, Saif Partners, Sapphire Venture and Silicon Valley Bank. Paytm which started out as payments solutions providers ventured into e-commerce in May 2014. In November, Paytm acquired home service marketplace Near.in for an undisclosed amount to focus on O2O and Hyperlocal commerce.

PepperTap acquires Jiffstore

The Hyperlocal Delivery service provider PepperTap (Nuvo Logistics Pvt. Ltd) has acquired smaller delivery start-up Jiffstore for an undisclosed amount through cash and stock. Nuvo Logistics, which also runs a reverse logistics business said that it plans to spin off the fast growing Hyperlocal business into a new entity by February-March. Reverse Logistics is the process of handling returns or goods rejected by customers.

Nuvo works with clients such as Snapdeal, Paytm and Shopclues. Nuvo fulfills almost 10,000-12,000 orders a day and is operational across 30 cities. With this move, the company is trying to avoid passing on the valuation of the reverse logistics a profitable entity to the investors who are putting in money specifically for the Hyperlocal business. The reverse logistics business currently makes Rs. 4 Crore annual profit.

PepperTap acquisition of Jiffstore is largely to get the company team and expand its presence in Bengaluru, where Jiffstore has been operating for more than two years. Jiffstore has been operating for more than two years. Jiffstore employs close to 40 people, who are slated to join PepperTap Gurgaon and Bengaluru offices. Jiffstore had last raised an undisclosed amount from Unitus Seed Fund and Times Internet Ltd. in June.

PepperTap earns more than 90% of its revenue from the commissions it earns from shops. The rests comes from the delivery cost. It charges consumers for orders below a minimum delivery benchmark. Recently, it also started marketing activities for packaged consumer goods companies by means of banner advertisements and exclusive launches.

Paytm Acquires Near.in

Mobile wallet and e-commerce company Paytm has bought home service marketplace Near.in for an undisclosed amount. The move is part of its increasing focus on online to offline (O2O) and Hyperlocal commerce. The company expects more than half of its sales to come from the Hyperlocal channel by 2016.

Near.in (run by Thumbspot Inc.), which connects users with local businesses for home services through a marketplace app, was founded in December 2014. It last raised a seed funding of $300,000 by a group of Angel investors. Other than this there are investors from Healthkart, SAP Labs, and Aspiring Minds. Near has a significant network of local service providers in place and a stellar team leading it.

Paytm is India’s largest mobile commerce platform. With its mobile first strategy, Paytm does more than $100 Million transactions of various digital and physical goods every month. Paytm Wallet is India’s dominant mobile Paytm service platform. Based in Delhi-NCR, its investors include Ant Financials (AliPay), SAIF partners, Sapphire Venture and Silicon Valley Bank.

The company also plans to venture into travel with Hotel, air and rail ticket bookings in partnership with online travel companies such as Goibibo and Yatra and budget accommodation marketplaces OYO Rooms and ZO Rooms. The company already sells bus tickets. Apart from tying up with online travel partners, the company will also allow offline travel agents to list on its platform.