Cashfree strikes second bet with Gurugram fintech firm
Payments and banking solutions provider Cashfree Payments, which counts State Bank of India, Apis Partners, Smilegate Investment and Y Combinator as its investors, said on Tuesday it has acquired Gurugram-based fintech startup in a bid to scale up fintech- the exposure to e-commerce users.
The acquisition of Zecpe marks Cashfree’s second venture, although the financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.
Following the acquisition, Zecpe, which facilitates the payment process for customers of direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands, will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cashfree Payments, a statement said on Tuesday.
Zecpe founder Hriday Agarwal will join Cashfree Payments’ team to lead the e-commerce checkout vertical. The fintech firm’s employees will also join Cashfree alongside him to help scale the product further.
A startup so far, Zecpe helps merchants increase conversion rates, and supports incremental monetization and scaling.
It is relevant to mention here that Zecpe’s acquisition comes after fresh redundancies at Cashfree last month. The company had let go of around 80 employees after periodic evaluation of performance and processes.
With this acquisition, Cashfree aims to increase its direct-to-consumer (D2C) payment capabilities and provide its merchants with a better end-to-end checkout and payment experience.
The agreement will also enable Cashfree Payments to offer additional value-added services such as return-to-origin (RTO) reduction, fraud detection and address pre-filling, among others, the statement added.
“We are confident that this acquisition will strengthen our D2C one-click payment capabilities and further elevate our leadership position in the SME space. At Cashfree Payments, we are focused on offering the widest range of payment solutions and thus constantly evolving our product suite to accommodate the changing needs of our merchants,” said Akash Sinha, co-founder and CEO of Cashfree Payments.
Founded in 2015 by Sinha and Reeju Datta, Cashfree provides full-stack payment solutions to businesses in India, enabling them to collect payments and make payments through various digital payment instruments. It claims to have more than 300,000 merchants to collect payments and make payouts with easy integration.
Cashfree’s clientele includes Nykaa, FirstCry, Nature’s Basket, BigBasket, Zomato, Noise, Bella Vita Organic and MyFitness, among others. It claims to have over 50% market share among payment processors.
It competes against, among others, Razorpay, Pine Labs, BillDesk and Stripe.
Earlier, Cashfree Payments had acquired Telr, a payment service provider operating in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, as part of its strategy to expand its footprint in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region. In addition to these geographies, the company also operates in the US and Canada.
