PayTm, the baby of Vijay Shekhar Sharma, has recently announced the acquisition of the hyper-local service marketplace Near.in. The acquisition is first since the funding it got from Alibaba Group and Ant Financial which was about $680 million (approx 4500 crores).
According to Kiran Vasireddy, senior vice-president & head of investments for Paytm.
“We see enormous potential for O2O in India, which is a perfect blend of online and offline commerce. With this core belief, we have acquired Near.in and we will continue to invest more in this space. Near has a significant network of local service providers in place and a stellar team leading it. We are confident that their platform and team will add further strength to our other O2O initiatives, which is a key focus area for us,”
How much was the acquisition costed?
Near.in’s acquisition costed around $1.5 million to $2 million and the mode of payment was cash-and-stock.
What does the company do?
The company is based on the Online-to-Offline (O2O) space and helps consumers discover service providers like plumbers, make-up and tattoo artists, etc in a specified locality. It covers several categories including health, home needs and wellness.
Why Near.in?
Paytm is looking to target Online (a multi-billion dollar industry) and offline (a multi-trillion dollar industry of India) markets through basic needs like plumbers, electricians etc.
Near.in was founded by Lomesh Dutta, Sunil Goyal and Akshay Khanna.
image : iamwire.com
