MUMBAI: has acquired platform , its first such deal in India, in a bid to build on and widen the scope of its payment offering. The part-stock and part-cash deal is valued at $40-45 million and will see Tapzo’s investors exit with a cash payout, according to two people aware of the deal. Tapzo cofounders and are set to get some cash and shares of the Seattle-based online retail giant, one person said, adding that the deal was completed last week. They will join the Amazon Pay team in India and help build up the platform. Tapzo CEO Ankur Singla did not respond to ET’s queries. While Amazon declined to comment on the acquisition, the company underlined its intent to enable digital payment offerings with maximum outreach. “Our commitment to the vision of a less cash India remains the same. Our goal is to make it easier than ever before for customers to make digital payments by improving the customer experience, affordability and daily routines,” a company spokesperson said. Interestingly, Amazon India announced the launch of bill payments under Amazon Pay on Tuesday, enabling recharges and payments for electricity, landline, broadband, gas and mobile phone bills. This new service offering comes on the back of the Tapzo acquisition, said one of the people. Tapzo, which was founded as Akosha in 2010 and later renamed several time, is an aggregator platform that allows users to access over 35 apps including Amazon, Flipkart, Ola and Uber. It allows customers to make mobile, DTH and data card recharges, bill payments, order cabs and food, book flight and bus tickets and avail of home services, among others. According to industry sources, recharges and bill payments have been the most effective for Tapzo, with about 15,000 transactions per month across the two services. Industry insiders maintain that the Tapzo platform and its technology, along with the founders, will be a significant needle mover for Amazon Pay, which is locked in a battle with PhonePe and Paytm for a sizeable share of the market and is looking at services to boost transaction frequency. “It would have taken Amazon Pay up to two years to build an entire stack of service offerings to enable efficient use-cases for its payment platform. So this acquisition helps them save time and also enables them to spread their cashback offers across a host of services immediately,” said the second person. To incentivise customers across its bill payments services through this acquisition, Amazon Pay is doubling down on cashbacks as also promotional offers. Backed by Sequoia Capital, American Express Ventures, Singapore-based RB Investments and Ru-Net, among others, Tapzo has been struggling to expand its transaction volumes, having undergone several pivots and rebranding exercises since launch. The readymade bouquet of services offered by Tapzo sits perfectly within Amazon Pay’s strategy and will eventually be subsumed into the Amazon Pay app. Tapzo raised about Rs 25 crore across two internal rounds of funding in January and June this year from RB Investments and Ru-Net. The capital was raised at a down round with the valuation dropping by almost 45%, suggested news reports. ET however could not independently verify this. The firm was valued at Rs 600 crore in 2016 when it raised about $5 million from Sequoia Capital.
Amazon Pay has upped the ante in its market share battle with PhonePe and Paytm, following its acquisition of Indian personal assistant app platform Tapzo. The part-shares, part-cash deal, valued at about $5 million, hands Amazon Pay a stack of value-added services, from bill payment to booking bus or plane tickets, potentially giving it the edge over rival operators. The app platform allows users to access 35 apps through one platform. Tapzo founders Ankur Singla and Vishal Pal Chaudhary, who secured backing from Sequoia Capital and American Express Ventures, among others, will join Amazon Pay's India team.