Pine Labs in talks to buy Qwikcilver

New Delhi based online retail payments platform Pine Labs is in talks to acquire Bengaluru digital gift card firm Qwikcilver Solutions, as the former looks to creating a strong footing in the gifting space.

Pine Labs is looking to acquire Qwikcilver for over $100 Mn in a mix of cash and stock deal. Once the acquisition deal materializes, the existing investors in the company are expected to cash out, while the founders of the company may stay on with the team. Launched in 2008, Qwikcilver helps retail and corporate customers to enhance their sales, brand and loyalty through card-based interventions such as Gift Cards, Loyalty Cards, Discount Cards, Frequency Cards and Credit Cards. It also provides a cloud-drive software-as-a-service for various brands.

The company claimed to have handled gift-card transactions worth INR 3K Cr ($422 Mn) with 160 Mn transactions in 2016. In the same year, Qwikcilver had raised undisclosed funding led by Sistema Asia Fund, the proprietary fund of Russian conglomerate Sistema. Prior to that, Amazon had invested $10 Mn in Qwikcilver Solutions. Overall, the company is believed to have raised $20 Mn. It also counts Accel Partners and Helion Venture Partners among its investors.

The acquisition of Qwikcilver may give Pine Labs an edge in offering gift cards to small-and medium-sized stores with card payment facilities. The Indian gift card market is expected to reach $80 Bn – $85 Bn by 2024. Of which, e-gift cards are expected to account for a lion’s share with $70 Bn. Pine Labs was launched in 1998. The Sequoia Capital-backed fintech company counts many large corporates among its clients. It provides an integrated payment gateway services to its partners. It claimed to be processing about 450 Mn transactions worth over $15 Bn annually, as of March 2018.

Amazon acquired Rooftop Media

Rooftop Media records and licenses the digital rights for comedians’ sets at comedy clubs across the USA. The company currently has partnerships with Apple and Yahoo and works with streaming services including Sirius XM, Pandora, and Spotify. Recently, Amazon had struck a deal to acquire Rooftop Media, as online comedic content service that it believes will help it enter new categories, as it competes against fast-rising competition from streaming media such as Netflix Inc.

San Francisco based Rooftop Media produces video and audio content related to stand up comedy, funny short films, and sketch comedy shows, which are then licensed to media and marketing companies to be put online for live broadcast, or made available on demand. Audible is an online audio book service acquired by Amazon in 2008 for almost $300 Million. All of Rooftop content will now be transferred to Audible, which already has more than 170,000 titles available online.

Amazon vision is to make the company a tech and media behemoth. Amazon is competing with competitors head to head in all countries. This year Amazon acquired Twitch, on online gaming platform. Over the past few years, Amazon has stepped out of its conventional retail business and created its very own smartphones, tablets, and set top TV boxes to boost digital content sales. Amazon also launched a new device known as the Fire TV Stick. It is claimed to be powerful streaming media stick in the market. It will compete with Google new Chromecast device.

In India, Amazon is in talk to acquire Fashion Portal Jabong to compete with Flipkart, who acquired Myntra this year. Amazon is also in talks to buy a minority stake in gift card technology and retail firm QwikCilver Solutions. It provides backend technology for the gift card business of several retailers including Shoppers Stop, Lifestyle, and Croma.