Flipkart acquires payments start-up PhonePe

E-commerce marketplace Flipkart Ltd has acquired Payments start-up PhonePe Internet Pvt. Ltd. which was launched last December by former Flipkart executives. Flipkart was in talks to acquire a majority stake in the company for an amount between $10 Million and $20 Million. The PhonePe team will join Flipkart but will function as an independent business unit.

Payments have been one of the biggest hurdles for mass adoption of online shopping in India. UPI has the potential of transforming the entire payments ecosystem in the country. The acquisition of PhonePe is in line with Flipkart focus on driving innovation on the payments front. PhonePe is Flipkart third acquisition in payments, after it bought payments start-up NGPay in 2014 and FX Mart Pvt. Ltd which owns a prepaid wallet license.

PhonePe hasn’t launched a product but is working on a payments solution around the Unified Payments Interface an initiative of the National Payments Corp. of India, which will allow fund transfer between banks and will make inter-operability between banks and instant payments possible by using a single identifier like the Aadhaar number or a virtual address.

The UPI is part of a set of government programmes and technologies, together called India Stack that companies use to slash costs in offline authentication and provide services legally approved by the government to anyone with a mobile phone. The UPI is set to be formally launched in April. PhonePe mission is to significantly improve the online and offline digital payments experience for Millions of Indian customers.

Airtel Acquires YTS Solutions

Bharti Airtel Ltd has acquired financial solutions firm YTS Solutions for an undisclosed amount and announced appointment of the latter co-founder Manish Khera as CEO of its mobile wallet service Airtel M Commerce Services. The acquired business will be integrated with the operations of Airtel Money Services Ltd.

Based out of Mumbai, YTS has been developing financial products focused on mass market and micro-transactions. This acquisition will expand Airtel portfolio in the mobile commerce segment and bring in a host of new product capabilities targeted at migrants in urban cities and their families in rural towns and villages.

The acquisition, the first such by an Indian Telco in the mobile commerce segment, will help in expanding the portfolio of Airtel Money, a mobile wallet, even as the Telco awaits the Reserve Bank of India decision on its application for a payments bank license. The acquisition is the first of its kind among Telecom service providers who offer mobile wallets.

In 2011, AMSL announced the launch of Airtel Money and in January 2015, it applied for a Payment Bank License. Airtel, India’s largest mobile operator with a customer base of over 230 Million, covers 430,000 towns and villages backed by 1.5 Million distribution outlets. Other Telecom providers such as, Vodafone has M-Pesa, Idea Cellular has Idea Money and Tata Teleservices has MRupee, and all of them compete with the likes of Paytm, MobiKwik, PayU and Oxigen for a share of the fast growing mobile commerce pie.

PayPal bought Money Transfer service Xoom

PayPal has made a few significant acquisitions since 2013, including purchasing Paydiant and Braintree. Now, PayPal said it would buy digital money transfer provider Xoom Corp. for $890 Million as it muscles into a growing international remittance market and expand in countries like Mexico, India and China ahead of a spinoff from eBay Inc.

Xoom, which has 1.3 Million customers and a presence in 37 countries, allow users to transfer money via desktop, mobile phones and tablets. The acquisition would allow Xoom to expand into new markets with less execution risk. Xoom will operate as a separate service within PayPal after the completion of the deal.

PayPal faces increasing competition from rivals like Stripe and Square, which is popular with smaller businesses and Apple Inc.’s Apple Pay. Online commerce foe Amazon Inc. is also beginning to explore in store payments. The company is slated to separate from eBay this month and list as an Independent company.

PayPal has been pushing hard into mobile, where customers are more frequently making everyday purchases. The company has touted its peer-to-peer money transferring division Venmo, used primarily by smartphone touting millennial, and earlier this year bought app developer Paydiant.

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.

Verizon to buy AOL

Verizon Communications is an American broadband and telecommunications company. It was founded as Bell Atlantic and it is the largest US Wireless communication service provider. AOL is an American multinational mass media corporation which develops, grows and invests in brands and websites. The company business spans digital distribution of content, products, and services, which it offers to consumers, publishers, and advertisers.

Recently, Verizon Communication said, it would buy AOL Inc. in a deal valued at about $4.4 Billion to gain access to AOL digital advertising service and content. The deal will see king of mobile phones acquire the one time king of media. Verizon is the largest phone operator in the country, and has growing lines of business offering high speed Internet, as well as business and streaming video services.

But in acquiring AOL, Verizon is buying much more than websites that host streaming content. Along with its video and online advertising technology, AOL owns the Huffington Post, a sprawling collection of international new websites with growing traffic. It also manages a dwindling but profitable dial up Internet business, providing online access for those who live in areas too remote to have broadband or who never canceled their subscriptions.

Verizon with more than 1.5 Billion connected devices has a vast network through which to distribute mobile content. It has been quietly building up its entertainment offerings, but until now has not made any significant acquisitions to bolster its offerings. 

Flipkart acquires Appiterate

E-commerce major Flipkart has been very clear about its mobile only strategy and in order to strengthen its presence in the area of mobile technology, it has acquired a New-Delhi based mobile engagement and marketing automation company Appiterate. This is Flipkart third acquisition of this year.

Appiterate helps E-commerce companies target customers better through push notifications and in-app messages. The funding team has a strong experience in the mobile app space and has in the past built mobile apps for companies such as Microsoft, Zomato, Groupon, Sears etc. In a short span Appiterate has carved out a niche in the industry as being one of the most disruptive companies in its space.

Flipkart is planning to go mobile-only within a year. Following the announcement that Myntra will shut down its website on May 1, Flipkart had said the E-commerce firm will too shift to an app only model within a year as traffic from mobile had grown nearly 10 times in just 12 months. Flipkart has been persistently looking to improve and expand its mobile app capabilities and plans to invest in and acquire other companies in this domain.

After this acquisition, Appiterate mobile marketing automation platform will be integrated into Flipkart mobile app to help in precise targeting of users based on their activity on the app and website. Appiterate has raised money from institutional investors like SAIF partners and angel investors.

MakeMyTrip Acquires Mygola

The country’s top online travel agency MakeMyTrip Ltd has acquired assets of Mygola.com for an undisclosed amount and the entire Mygola team has joined MakeMyTrip as part of the deal. The acquisition is done through the NASDAQ listed company innovation fund, which was formed to invest in startup or early stage companies in travel technology space.

Mygola, founded by IIT Batch mates Bapna and Prateek Sharma in 2009, claims it can help travellers create custom trips in 15 minutes. Its app, which is present in 16 cities across the world, has up to 5,000 installs on the Google Play store on Android. Mygola mobile app uses technology to curate content, videos, open/close hours, tips from travellers, panoramic views all on a massive scale and specific to individual user taste. The acquisition could potentially give MakeMyTrip a greater foothold in the mobile space.

Since users book everything from attractions to restaurants and cabs from within the app, the company makes money through a commission every time a transaction happens. For restaurant booking it charges $1 per diner and between 5 and 10 percent from cabs etc. It also charges 5 percent from end users as convenience fee. In the original model, Mygola used to generate revenues from users asking questions besides earning a commission for bookings.

The acquisition comes at a time when the Indian travel sector is heating up, having received $71 Million in funding so far in 2015, mostly in early stage and seed funding, as opposed to $55 Million in all of 2014. Helion Venture partners, who led the $1.5 Million round in 2013 for Mygola in October, were also an investor in MakeMyTrip. Prior to that, Mygola had raised $1 Million from the US based accelerator 500 startups, Blumberg capital.

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.

Intel in talks to buy Altera

Intel Corporation is an American Multinational corporation headquartered in Santa Clara, California. Intel is one of the world largest and highest valued semiconductor chip makers, based on revenue. It is the inventor of x86 series of microprocessors, the processors found in most personal computers. Altera Corporation is an American manufacturer of Programmable Logic Devices (PLD), reconfigurable complex digital circuits. The company released its first PLD in 1984.

People with knowledge of matter said that, Intel is in talks to acquire Altera. Altera shares jumped 28% to $44.39 at the close in New York, giving the company a valuation of about $13.4 Billion. Intel rose 6.4% to $32. Intel is on the hunt for growth as it faces a slowdown in the market for PCs that forced a $1 Billion cut in its first quarter sales forecast earlier this month. This decline comes on top of heavy losses in Intel’s mobile division. The group reported an operating loss of $4.21 Billion in 2014.

A bright spot for Intel is the data center group, where profits soared to $7.28 Billion on sales of $14.4 Billion in 2014. The company benefited from a boom in the amount of data being generated and held in computing centers around the world. Altera makes a broad range of low power semiconductors, which are used in small embedded devices and computer servers for big data centers.

In buying Altera, Intel could expand into markets for automotive, industrial and communication applications, while cementing its leads in data centers. Intel and Altera announced a manufacturing partnership in Feb 2013, agreeing that Altera chips would be made in Intel’s cutting edge plants.

Snapdeal in talks to buy Komli

A major acquisition in the mobile advertising space seems only a matter of time as e-commerce players flex their financial muscle to bring in the next piece of their jigsaw puzzle. Sources indicate that the likes of Flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon, and Shopclues, are all in the market for acquisition. The target seems to be broadly divided in two categories – mobile tech and mobile banking.

Online retailer Snapdeal is in advanced talks to acquire Komli Media in a deal that values the ad technology company at about $300 Million, the same as when it raised funds from investors. The deal will give Snapdeal engineering capabilities in Bengaluru as it battles Flipkart, as well as it notch up advertising revenues by selling space on the e-commerce site. Snapdeal had an estimated 79.8 monthly visitors in February and Flipkart had 110.5 Million.

Flipkart recently made clear its plans to sell advertising on its platform. The ecommerce firm also acquired ad technology company AdIQuity. Komli was founded by Amar Goel in 2006 and has raised $97 Million in five rounds of funding from investors including Nexus Ventures Partners and Peepul Capital. It employs nearly 300 people across India and started as a digital advertising network – buying and selling advertising inventory online in Asia Pacific.

Goel also set up Pubmatic, focused on technology for online advertising in the US in 2008. InMobi, another ad network based in Bengaluru, was founded a year later and went on to raise $200 Million from Japan Softbank. Driven by increased spending by ecommerce companies, India’s online advertising market is set to grow by 30% this financial year to reach a total size of Rs 3,575 crore. 

Flipkart acquires AdIQuity

Indian E-commerce giant made its first acquisition of the year; acquired Bengaluru based AdIQuity, a global mobile ad network enabling app developers and mobile publisher’s revenues from their mobile inventory. AdIQuity is backed by VC’s like Sequoia Capital and has raised $15 Million across two rounds in 2006 and 2008.

Founded by IITian Anurag Dod, AdIQuity also facilitates ad agencies, ad networks, DSPs and other media buyers to acquire global mobile traffic. The nine year old venture claims to have 150 Million monthly active users in its network spread across 200 countries generating 25 Billion ad impressions every month. The country’s most valuable startup, valued at $11 Billion is seeking to expand its presence and capabilities by the inorganic way this year. The AdIQuity acquisition will enable.

Flipkart to boost its external marketing capabilities as it aims to diversify into online advertising and brand consulting for vendors. The additional revenues from these verticals would help Flipkart in becoming profitable prior to a listing. Having kicked off the acquisitions, it would be worth looking at the newer capabilities the company would be looking at. Last year, to strengthen its fashion vertical it bought out Myntra in one of the largest deals in the startup space.

Recently, Snapdeal acquired premium and luxury fashion retailer, Exclusively.com and Wishpicker.com, an online gift recommendation portal. While Amazon picked up a minority stake in Gift card Technology and retail firm, QwikCilver Solutions.

PayPal buys Mobile Payment startup Paydiant

PayPal is an American international Digital wallet based e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to paying with traditional paper methods, such as checks and money orders. PayPal is one of the world’s largest internet payment companies. The company operates as an acquirer, performing payment processing for online vendors, auction sites and other commercial users, for which it charges a fee.

The eBay payment unit plans to acquire Paydiant, a payments startup that licenses a technology platform used by big retail chains to create their own branded mobile wallet apps. PayPal will pay around $280 Million for the startup. Founded in 2010, Paydiant white label platform is used by Subway and other retailers and banks to add payment, loyalty, and digital coupon capabilities to their own apps. Its customer list also includes MCX, a consortium of big box retailers led by Walmart that says it will launch its mobile wallet app this year.

Competition in the mobile wallet sector is heating up with the launch of Apple Pay, Samsung offering Samsung Pay beginning this summer and Google teaming up with Verizon Wireless, AT&T and T-Mobile to have its Google Wallet payment service built into Android phones sold by those carriers. EBay has been planning to spin off its PayPal payment business in the second half of this year.

In 2013, PayPal had acquired mobile payment service Venmo. PayPal has also announced that its Here card reader for mobile payments will soon support the wireless payment technology. The NFC enabled version of Here will pair with phones via Bluetooth, and supports traditional chip and PIN methods. The new NFC enabled PayPal Here Chip and PIN card reader, which will start rolling out in the UK and Australia this summer, and in the US later this year.

Google to buy Softcard

Google is reportedly is in talks to purchase Softcard, a mobile payments service in direct competition with Apple Pay, sparkling speculation the company may be readying itself to take on the consumer electronics giant. If the deal pushes through, Google will be paired with the biggest carriers in the United States in its bid to challenge the Apple Pay service in the burgeoning mobile payments industry.

Softcard is owned by AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and T-Mobile USA, but is currently searching for a buyer after making more than 60 employees redundant. Google offered $50 Million for the company, while PayPal and Microsoft have also reportedly expressed interest. Google Mobile payment service, Wallet was somewhat ahead of curve but has not made the impact the company may have hoped after key telecommunications companies, such as Verizon.

Softcard is taking steps to reduce costs and strengthen its business. This includes simplifying the company organizational structure and consolidating all operations into its Dallas and New York offices, which involves across the company. According to reports, Apple Pay could arrive in the UK in the first half of 2015, after the service US release back in the October 2014.

Google original vision for Wallet included a closed loop advertising system that would use purchases in physical stores to improve the targeting of digital ads. The plan was to share some of this ad revenue with the wireless carriers, but the companies could not agree on how to do that. A Google acquisition of Softcard could revive these types of advertising deals and put Google and the telecom companies in a better position to compete with Apple Pay. 

iKaaz launches mobile payment platform

Bangalore-based mobile payments solutions provider, iKaaz Software Pvt Ltd has launched a platform to facilitate quick and easy payments for enterprises as well as consumers. iKaaz consumers wallet offers banks, operators, and merchants a mobile wallet to their customers, while its consumer centric platform iKaaz M-POS can replace expensive POS equipment with just a feature phone that settles payments electronically.

The company also offers an app, Tap & Pay, using which a bank account holder can initiate money transfers and consumers can complete merchant transactions and pay bills using their mobile phones. With this app, which leverages NFC technology, merchants can receive payments from customers with just a tap of a phone at the checkout terminal.

On the one hand, customers can transform their mobile phones into a mobile wallet using a smart iKaaz NFC tag and complete payments faster at merchant locations. On the other hand, merchants can benefit by significantly by reducing the transaction processing fees. Developed by domain experts with many years of experience in the mobile payments space, iKaaz is head quartered in Bangalore and caters to customers across the globe. It has offices in Washington the US and Nairobi in Kenya.

Last year, iKaaz has expanded into Kenya. For the same, the company had collaborated with Family Bank, one of the leading banks in the country. As the part of partnership, iKaaz will provide the customers of Family bank with its Near Field Communication (NFC) and Bluetooth powered contactless payments through Tap and Pay method. The software provider was also in talks to raise $10 M from Brand capital, which will be used for expansion in India for a new product.