PhonePe is a mobile payment app that allows users to transfer money instantly to anyone by just using their phone number.
PhonePe was found in December 2015 and was acquired by Flipkart in 2016. In 2018, Flipkart was acquired by Walmart and PhonePe was also part of the transaction.
Flushed with funds after a massive $700 million funding round led by Walmart, PhonePe has been very aggressive with its marketing and acquisition. PhonePe was valued at $5.5 billion, making it the second most valuable fintech after Paytm.
In April, it processed 1.19 billion UPI transactions, worth Rs. 2.34 lakh crore, cornering nearly 45% of the market. And with this recent acquisition, it has hit another milestone in the business world.
Acquisition Overview
Bengaluru-based India’s leading UPI payment platform, Phonepe is all set to acquire homegrown content and app discovery platform, Indus OS for a deal valued at $60 million.
This is believed to be the second acquisition PhonePe has made. In 2018, PhonePe had acquired point-of-sale startup Zopper as well, as part of its aggressive expansion.
The rationale behind this acquisition is to boost its ‘super app’, called Switch, designed to offer a wide range of services under one umbrella. The super app aggregates 400 apps across verticals including categories such as food, travel, shopping, and lifestyle which users can access.
With this acquisition, PhonePe not only gets Indus OS’ customer base of English-speaking 100 million users, but also plans to expand it for users not having English as their primary language.
