Freshworks acquires Zarget

Enterprise software firm Freshworks Inc., previously Freshdesk, had acquired Zarget, a website analytics start-up backed by marquee Investors including Sequoia Capital. This marks the ninth acquisition for Freshworks in less than three years. It had acqui-hired chatbot start-up Joe Hukum, data integration platform Pipemonk and social media customer service firm Airwoot, among others.

Founded in 2015, Zarget offers tools to businesses and marketers to understand user behaviour on websites. According to the company, its suite of solutions—which include a click map of visitors, tests to determine the webpages that are doing better and other patented tools deployed through Google Chrome extensions—deliver actionable insights to increase user engagement.

Zarget was started by former Zoho executives Arvind Parthiban, Naveen Venkat and Santosh Kumar and is based in Chennai. The start-up received a seed investment from Freshworks’ Mathrubootham and went on to raise $7.5 million over two rounds from Accel Partners, Matrix Partners India and Sequoia Capital India.

Zarget was built to help marketers make informed decisions on their online properties without the need for deep technical resources or large budgets. Together with Freshworks, Zarget expect to accelerate the digital marketing evolution and help our customers further transform the way they market with combined expertise and solutions.

Twitch acquired ClipMine

In an announcement about a set of new discovery tools, Amazon-owned video game streaming site Twitch also unveiled that it recently acquired Palo Alto-based video indexing platform ClipMine. The startup’s technology is now being put to use to translate visual information in videos – like objects, text, logos and scenes – into metadata that can help people more easily find the streams they want to watch.

Launched back in 2015, ClipMine had originally introduced a platform designed for crowdsourced tagging and annotations. The idea then was to offer a technology that could sit over top videos on the web – like those on YouTube, Vimeo or DailyMotion – that allowed users to add their own annotations. This, in turn, would help other viewers find the part of the video they wanted to watch, while also helping video publishers learn more about which sections were getting clicked on the most.

The company later pivoted to focus on the e-sports industry, with tools that could extract information from game videos like player names, game type, number of gaming sessions per stream, and more. It also shifted away from the idea of crowdsourcing to take advantage of other technologies, like computer vision and machine learning.

Twitch’s interest in the company’s deep learning-based video indexing platform was due to its ability to analyze video content – like gamer’s streams – to identify what’s taking place in those streams, who’s playing and other variables. It has now put this technology to use with the launch of new stream discovery tools for Blizzard Entertainment’s “Overwatch” and “Hearthstone.” In the directories for those game streams, viewers are able to filter channels by a number of factors, including by hero on “Overwatch” streams, by game mode, player rank, number of wins, and by hero class on “Hearthstone” streams.

Genpact acquires OnSource

Business process outsourcing firm Genpact Ltd has acquired US based OnSource, an inspection-as-a-service (IaaS) provider for the insurance industry, for an undisclosed amount. The deal will help Genpact gain access to advanced digital inspection technologies to claims management services.

Genpact, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, said the transaction builds upon its recent acquisition of BrightClaim and National Vendor that have expanded its US claims management capabilities. Massachusetts-based OnSource caters to property and casualty insurance companies and their customers.

OnSource enables insurance companies to analyze the claims through photo inspections. Policyholders and claimants can use self-inspection apps or OnSource network of photo field inspectors and quality assurance analysts. OnSource ability to disrupt insurance claims operations is a critical addition to our digital-led insurance service offerings.

In 2016, more than 40% of Genpact revenues were derived from clients in the financial services industry, which includes insurance, according to its annual report. Genpact started its operations as a captive business process services provider for GE’s financial services business. The company began to servicing outside clients from 2005. In 2016, business process services contributed 81% to its total revenues of $2.57 billion. Most of Genpact employees are based out of India. It has centres in Gurugram, Hyderabad, Jaipur and Kolkata.

Facebook acquires Ozlo

After shutting down one of its Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems as chatbots defied the human generated algorithms and started communicating in their own language, Facebook has acquired an AI startup Ozlo to enhance its Messenger’s Personal assistant.

The four-year-old California-based startup that specializes in understanding text-based conversations claims that its virtual assistants can understand and provide answers to questions which do not have simple “yes” or “no”. Ozlo has raised $14 million from a number of investors. The startup has 30 employees, majority of whom would be joining Messenger in Facebook’s offices in either Menlo Park (California) or Seattle (Washington).

The social media giant on Sunday pulled the plug on its AI system because things got out of hand. The AI did not start shutting down computers worldwide or something of the sort, but it stopped using English and started using a language that it created. Initially, the AI agents used English to converse with each other but later, they created a new language that only AI systems could understand, thus, defying the purpose of the researchers. Earlier this year, Messenger’s product head Stan Chudnovsky said Facebook was focused on text-based AI because voice conversations like that of Apple or Google required an extra step.

BookMyShow acquires Nfusion

Online entertainment ticketing company BookMyShow has acquired video-on-demand platform Nfusion for an undisclosed amount, a move that will help the Mumbai based firm enhance its audio streaming offerings.

Nfusion was set up in the Middle East in 2009 by Shoaib G.M. Khan, Sivagurunathan S. and Prabhakar Reddy. The HD video- on-demand platform allowed users to stream videos online. Dar said that strengthening the audio offerings is part of BookMyShow efforts to become a complete entertainment destination. Nfusion had a library of 1.5 million songs and are now making available curated music that will help listeners discover many more tracks.

Kuber will play an instrumental role in driving partnerships with music labels and distributors, creating exclusive audio content for BookMyShow users, and product marketing. In 2013, BookMyShow had acquired Chennai-based online ticketing player TicketGreen. It then acquired a majority stake in Bengaluru-based social media analytics start-up Eventifier in 2015 and Chennai-based fan relationship management (FRM) solutions provider, Fantain Sports in 2016.

In 2017, BookMyShow acquired Hyderabad-based online movie ticketing platform MastiTickets, invested in Pune-based DIY platform Townscript and also acquired Mumbai-based local food and restaurant recommendation engine, Burrp.

Persistent Systems to acquire Parx Werk

Indian Information technology services provider Persistent Systems Ltd has agreed to acquire Swiss Firm Parx Werk AG to strengthen its expertise in Salesforce Software.

Parx is a certified partner in Germany, Austria and Switzerland of Salesforce, an American cloud computing company that provides a cloud-based customer relationship management software. This is the second acquisition by Persistent of a Salesforce partner since March last year, when it had agreed to acquire Australia’s PRM Cloud Solutions Pty Ltd for an undisclosed amount.

Parx was incorporated in 2001. The company reported revenue of 8 million Swiss francs for the year ended December 2016. It recorded a 28% annual compound growth in revenue from 2014. Prior to its acquisition of Australia’s PRM Solutions, Persistent had signed an agreement in January 2016 to acquire Citrix Systems’ CloudPlatform and CloudPortal Business Manager Product lines for an undisclosed amount through its US subsidiary.

In 2015, Persistent had made two acquisitions. It acquired Ireland-based technology firm Aepona Holdings Ltd and US-based software company Akumina Inc. content management services business. Data, digital, IoT (internet of things) and platforms are the foundation of software-driven businesses. Parx brings a deep business domain understanding that complements our technology expertise.

Advent International acquires Dixcy Textiles

Advent International the leading US-based private equity investor, has acquired Dixcy Textiles Pvt. Ltd, the South Indian firm which sells leading innerwear brand Dixcy Scott.

The transaction is Advent’s fourth investment in India since 2015 following its purchase of equity stakes in Crompton Greaves Consumer Electricals, QuEST Global Services and ASK Group. Dixcy Scott, endorsed by Bollywood star Salman Khan, competes with Page Industries Ltd, the licensee for the Jockey brand in India; Rupa and Co. Ltd, the owner of MacroMan, Frontline and Euro brands; Lux Industries Ltd, the owner of the Lux Cozi brand; and Dollar Industries Ltd, which sells brands such as Bigboss and Club in India.

Founded in 1982, Tirupur-based Dixcy is the exclusive manufacturer and marketer of several leading innerwear brands, including Dixcy Scott, Dixcy Scott UNO, Dixcy Josh and Dixcy & Slimz. The company also sells a premium range of products including casual wear such as track pants, shorts and polo t-shirts. Additionally, Dixcy has begun to expand internationally by placing its products in stores across the Middle East and Singapore, stated the company release. The company employs over 3,500 people and generated sales of Rs780 crore ($120 million) in fiscal year 2017.

The Indian underwear market is currently estimated at Rs24,000 crore and the segment has grown at 15% over 2010-15, according to a 2016 report by Intimate Apparel Association of India and Wazir Advisors. The underwear market is estimated to continue at the same growth rate over the next five years and is expected to become a Rs47,000 crore market, which is nearly 8% of the total estimated apparel market, by 2020, said the report.

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.

Michael Kors to acquire Jimmy Choo

Michael Kors Holdings Ltd agreed to buy Jimmy Choo Plc. for about $1.2 Billion, clinching the London based maker of strappy stilettos, handbags and perfume.

The handbag maker will pay 230 pence a share for the luxury shoemaker. The price is equal to about 17.5 times Jimmy Choo’s adjusted Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) for 2016. The Jimmy Choo brand rose to prominence in the late 1990s, boosted by high-profile devotees including the late Princess Diana and the fictional Carrie Bradshaw in television series “Sex and the City.”

The deal comes amid consolidation in the luxury industry, with Michael Kors rival Coach Inc. agreeing to buy Kate Spade & Co. in early 2017. Jimmy Choo was acquired by private-equity investors three times before being bought by JAB Holding Co. for more than £500 million in 2011.

Jimmy Choo was started in 1996 by British Vogue editor Tamara Mellon and designer Jimmy Choo. Its stilettos, which often cost north of $1,000, quickly became a favorite among celebrities like Sarah Jessica Parker and Princess Diana. Jimmy Choo has more than 150 stores around the world.

Yatra acquires Air Travel Bureau

Yatra, the NASDAQ listed online travel Company, has entered into an agreement to acquire Air Travel Bureau Ltd, which it says is India’s largest independent corporate travel services provider, with gross bookings of Rs 1500 crores, and a client base of over 400 large and medium businesses across India.

ATB is a 30 year old company and claims that it can help companies save up to 20% of their corporate travel costs. For ATB, they’ll also get access to Yatra’s aggregation of hotels, which they can offer to their clients. According to ATB’s website, they have their own online booking tool with web-fares; travel policy compliance tools, built-in trip authorization and travel notifications, and a real-time view of travel spend for travel managers, apart from integration with ERP solutions like SAP and Oracle.

The acquisition of ATB essentially helps Yatra strengthen its position in the more reliable corporate travel business vertical, even as it tries to find its own space in a market that the MakeMyTrip - Goibibo combine dominate. In July 2016, Yatra had signed a reverse-merger agreement with US-based special purpose acquisition company Terrapin 3 Acquisition Corp, which was listed on the NASDAQ, paving the way for a back-door listing of the second Indian online travel services provider in the US.

Yatra was founded in 2006 by former Ebookers Group (UK) executives Shringi, Manish Amin and Sabina Chopra. Amin is now chief information officer and Chopra is executive vice president of operations. The company is backed by a string of venture capital, private equity and strategic investors. In October last year, it sold a small stake to Reliance Industries Ltd as part of a deal linked to an existing partnership where Reliance pre-installed the Yatra mobile app in its Lyf-branded 4G handsets.

Zee Media Corporation to buy BTVi

Zee Media Corporation is in advanced talks to acquire Business Broadcast News, an Anil Ambani owned company that operates English Business News channel BTVi. Zee Media could pay between Rs 80 crore and Rs 100 crore for the company.

In November last year, Zee Entertainment Enterprises, another Essel Group company, acquired the television broadcast business of Ambani owned Reliance Broadcast Networks (RBN). At the time, Zee Media had picked a 49% stake in Radio business, operated under Big FM umbrella, with an understanding to acquire the remaining 51% after March next year.

While RBN ran entertainment channels Big Magic and Big Ganga, the news channel, BTVi was part of a different company, Business Broadcast News, while Ambani had acquired from former UTV boss Ronnie-Screwvala. English business news is a small genre in the TV space with two strong players: Times Group-owned ET Now and Mukesh Ambani owned CNBC TV18.

After suffering losses for many years, Prannoy Roy's NDTV shut down its English business news channel, NDTV Profit, in June this year. BTVi continues to remain on air. BTVi was launched by Screwvala in April 2008 as UTVi and soon it was renamed Bloomberg UTV, after the company signed a content and licensing deal with American media and data company Bloomberg. In 2012, when Screwvala sold UTV to the Walt Disney group, the Reliance Group acquired Screwvala stake in Business Broadcast News and renamed the channel Bloomberg TV India.

In January last year, Business Broadcast News and Bloomberg decided not to renew the licensing agreement. On August 1 Bloomberg TV India was renamed BTVi. Bloomberg, meanwhile, entered into a joint venture with Raghav Bahl owned Quintillion Media to launch a business new channel, Bloomberg Quint. Bahl is awaiting the broadcast license from the information and broadcasting ministry to launch the channel.

Google acquires Halli Labs

American Technology giant Google has acquired Bangalore based artificial Intelligence firm Halli Labs for an undisclosed sum. The firm becomes the latest AI start up to be snapped by a technology giant after a spate of similar acquisitions by firms such as Microsoft, Facebook, Apple among others.

Halli Labs was founded with the goal of applying modern AI and Machine Learning techniques to old problems and domains. In order to help technology enable people to do whatever it is what they want to do, easier and better. According to research by CB Insights, 34 Artificial Intelligence startups have been acquired in the first quarter of this year, which is double the number compared to the year-ago period.

The study also notes that Google has been the most aggressive in this space with 11 acquisitions since 2012 followed by Apple, Intel and Facebook. Some of the acquisitions by Google in AI include firms such deep learning and neural network startup DNNresearch from the computer science department at the University of Toronto in 2013; British company DeepMind Technologies in 2014 for $600 Million, visual search startup Moodstock, and bot platform Api.ai last year.

It acquired predictive analytics platform Kaggle in the first quarter of this year. Even though India has become the third largest market for start-ups, acquisitions by global technology companies have been few. Some of the notable ones include ZipDial which was acquired by Twitter in January 2015 and LittleEyeLabs that was snapped up by Facebook in January 2014.

Byju buys TutorVista and Edurite

Education Technology start-up Byju has acquired global education company Pearson Plc.’s TutorVista and Edurite for an undisclosed amount, in a move aimed at expanding global reach as well as offerings for students.

TutorVista gets about 70% of the traffic on its website from the US. Pearson in 2009 acquired a 17% stake in Bangalore-headquartered TutorVista and in January 2011 purchased another 59% stake for Rs577 crore. It increased its controlling stake to 80% from 76% in the same year. In February 2013, it acquired the remaining 20%.

TutorVista operates in four business segments-online tutorials; digital content and information and communication technologies for schools; test preparation and offline coaching to students; and the management of K-12 schools. TutorVista had acquired Edurite in 2007. Today, Edurite sells educational CDs and DVDs.

Byju has been one of the few growth stage start-ups to have raised multiple rounds of funds in 2016, apart from food tech start-up Swiggy (Bundl Technologies Pvt. Ltd). The company raised about $75 million from Sequoia Capital and Belgian family office Sofina in March 2016. In September, Byju raised $50 million in a round led by Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, becoming the first Asian investment for the personal fund set up by Facebook Inc. founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan. In December, the company raised another $15 million from World Bank arm International Finance Corp.

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.

Tata Group to acquire GrocerMax

The Tata Group is buying out the management team and technology infrastructure of Gurgaon based GrocerMax to enter the online grocery business as consumers increasingly place orders for their supplies over the internet.

The new team will help set up the online platform for Trent Hypermarket, an equal joint venture between Tata and British retailer Tesco that will rival Amazon and Bigbasket in the nascent yet rapidly growing segment. GrocerMax will shut down its business in Gurgaon because the Tata group's grocery business is not present in North India. The Tata Group runs three formats under the Star Banner – Dailies, Market and Hyper and has around 42 stores.

For Tesco, the world’s third largest retailer has nearly 6,800 stores globally, its online business earns roughly 3 Billion in sales and is one of the rare such ventures that’s profitable. But the opportunity offered by the $500 Billion retail market is attractive for any player, foreign or local. Food and grocery account for almost 50% of the overall retail basket in India, although general merchandise, personal and home products fill up a bulk of the retailer’s profit pool.

Experts feel omnichannel retail offers consumers more ways to shop and interact with a retailer. GrocerMax is a hybrid platform for grocery that keeps only 10% inventory, sourcing the rest from supermarkets and provisional stores in real time. The online grocery space in India, which has seen a minor shakeout over the past year, has attracted more players as well. While LocalBanya and PepperTap suspended operations, Grofers shut in multiple cities.

Diageo to acquire Tequila brand Casamigos

Diageo Plc. Agreed to acquire fast growing Tequila brand Casamigos, co-founded four years ago by George Clooney, for as much as $1 Billion. The deal expands the London based distiller’s lineup in a fast growing category, where it already owns the Don Julio, DeLeon and Peligroso brands.

The purchase will be Diageo’s biggest since its $3.2 billion acquisition of United Spirits Ltd in 2014. After that deal boosted its presence in India, the owner of the Smirnoff brand is moving to strengthen its US business, which has returned to growth after a difficult stretch following a slowdown in vodka sales. Meanwhile, tequila volume in the US more than doubled from 2002 through 2015, according to the distilled spirits council.

Clooney, better known for his role in movies such as “Ocean’s Eleven” and as a pitchman for Nespresso coffee, created Casamigos in 2013 with developer Mike Meldman and entertainment entrepreneur Rande Gerber. They got in on the tequila boom after tasting together in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, where Clooney and Gerber had built vacation homes. Now they’re cashing out with an initial consideration of $700 million that could be followed by a further potential $300 million based on a performance-linked earn-out over 10 years.

Casamigos, packaged in clear bottles with Clooney’s signature adorning the label, is distilled by an undisclosed partner in Mexico. Casamigos is sold in three expressions, at $45 to $55: Blanco, which is clear, Reposado, which is golden-coloured, and Anejo, dark amber variant and the brand oldest. The brand has been marketed with pictures of the founders enjoying it, captioned with the slogan, “Brought to you by those who drink it.”

Airbnb to buy Trooly

Airbnb Inc. is purchasing background check startup Trooly Inc. in an effort to protect its guests and hosts from bad actors. Los Altos, California based Trooly has been helping Airbnb authenticate user identities since 2015. By analyzing data from public records, social media and other sources, Trooly technology could help Airbnb track various customer violations, such as side deals between guests and hosts.

Since starting in 2008, Airbnb has struggled to control fraudulent listings from people posing as property owners. Some Airbnb guests have also been found to sidestep the company by finding an attractive listing on Airbnb website, then contacting the hosts—usually via social media—and offering to pay them directly. Airbnb takes as much as a 12% fee from its guests. Hosts are charged a 3% fee on listings that are booked. In most cases, the company is also required to charge guests a local tax, usually 3 percent, though the tax rates vary by city, state and country.

Trooly was started in 2014, but waited until last year to raise $10 million in its first round of financing, led by Bain Capital Ventures and Milliways Ventures. Airbnb is purchasing Trooly intellectual property and engineering team, according to people familiar with the situation. The home-rental site is expected to close the deal on Monday when Trooly will shut down operations as an independent company, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private.

The acquisition comes at a time of expansion for Airbnb. The privately held company, valued at about $31 billion, has more than 3 million home and apartment-rental listings and is expanding into new product categories including travel “experiences.” In February, Airbnb purchased Canadian property management company Luxury Retreats. San Francisco-based Airbnb turned a profit for the first time in the second half of 2016.

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.

Amazon to buy Whole Foods

Amazon.com Inc. will acquire Whole Foods Market Inc. for $13.7 Billion, a bombshell of a deal that catapults the e-commerce giant into the supermarket business with hundreds of store across the US.

Amazon agreed to pay $42 a share in cash for the organic-food chain, including debt, a roughly 27% premium to the stock price at Thursday’s close. The deal sends a shockwave across both the online and brick-and-mortar industries, uniting two brands that weren’t seen as obvious partners. For Amazon, the deal is more about getting a distribution network for groceries. It has spent years trying to break into delivering groceries, but hasn’t been as successful as in other categories.

The transaction also may help Amazon sideline Instacart Inc., a startup that has delivered grocery orders from Whole Foods stores in more than 20 states and Washington, D.C. Amazon’s biggest acquisition announced to date came in 2014, when it agreed to buy video-game service Twitch Interactive Inc. for $970 million in cash.

Millions of people love Whole Foods Market because they offer the best natural and organic foods, and they make it fun to eat healthy. The takeover is slated to be completed in the second half of the year, with Whole Foods’ headquarters remaining in Austin, Texas.

FlexiLoans acquires CreditPeriod

Online lending platform FlexiLoans has acquired Mumbai based supply chain finance startup, CreditPeriod for an undisclosed amount. With this move, FlexiLoans attempts to strengthen its supply chain finance offering.

Founded in 2015 by CreditPeriod initially functioned as a B2B ecommerce platform catering to the raw material procurement needs of SMEs. Now a fintech startup, it allows SME buyers to procure goods/services on credit while ensuring that sellers get their money upfront, thereby eliminating credit risk and enabling instant liquidity.

FlexiLoans started operations in January 2016 and was founded by four Indian School of Business alumni. FlexiLoans’ proprietary credit engine allows the startup to disburse a loan within 24 hours. It has already partnered with over 20 national digital marketplaces and organizations like Flipkart, Ola, ShopClues and Jabong etc. The company plans to double loan disbursal in the next one year and tap 200 cities.

As per an IBEF report, the fintech market in India is estimated to double to $2.4 Bn by 2020 from around $1.2 Bn at present. In February 2017, Bengaluru-based online lending platform Capital Float raised about $2.5 Mn (INR 17 Cr) from IFMR Capital Finance and its alternative investment fund. Earlier this month, Pune-based fintech startup EarlySalary rose $4 Mn Series A funding from IDG Ventures India (IDGVI) and Dewan Housing Finance Corp Ltd (DHFL). Other startups in this segment include KountMoney, Faircent.com, LoanCircle, Capzest, etc.