Paytm acquires Near.in to strengthen its presence in online-to-offline space

Mobile wallet and e-commerce company Paytm has bought home service marketplace Near.in for an undiscosed amount, One97 Communications Ltd, which runs Paytm, said in a statement issued on Monday.

The move is part of its increasing focus on online-to-offline (O2O) and hyperlocal commerce. The company expects more than half of its sales to come from the hyperlocal channel by 2016 end, Mint reported on 8 October

Near.in (run by Thumbspot Inc.), which connects users with local businesses for home services through a marketplace app, was founded by Sunil Goyal, Lomesh Dutta and Akshay Khanna in December 2014.

It last raised a seed funding of $300,000 by a group of angel investors, co-led by Anupam Mittal, chief executive of People Group, and Manish Vij of Smile Vun Group.

Prashant Tandon and Gaurav Agarwal of Healthkart, Akash Agarwal of SAP Labs, Himanshu Aggarwal of education firm Aspiring Minds and Kevin Parikh of consulting firm Avasant also participated in the round in January.

“We see enormous potential for online to offline in India. 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,” said Kiran Vasireddy, senior vice-president and head of investments at Paytm.

Paytm is India’s largest mobile commerce platform. With its mobile first strategy, Paytm does more than 100 million transactions of various digital and physical goods every month.

Launched in 2014, Paytm wallet is India’s dominant mobile payment service platform. Based in Delhi-NCR, its investors include Ant Financials (AliPay), SAIF Partners, Sapphire Venture and Silicon Valley Bank.

The company also plans to venture into travel with hotel, air and rail ticket bookings in partnership with online travel companies such as Goibibo (part of ibiboGroup) and Yatra (Yatra Online Pvt. Ltd), and budget accommodation marketplaces OYO Rooms and ZO Rooms. The company already sells bus tickets. Apart from tying up with online travel partners, the company will also allow offline travel agents to list on its platform.

In October, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder and chief executive officer of Paytm, said that the company’s hyperlocal business is expected to generate an annualized GMV (gross merchandise value, or cost of goods and services sold) of $4-5 billion in the next two years. The company plans to invest close to $100 million over two years towards marketing and getting merchants on board.