BIGGEST MERGER DEAL IN FINTECH STARTUPS

Gurgaon based Payment gateway provider PAYU owned by NASPERS and operated by PayU Payments Private Limited has acquired Citruspay. This is said to be the one of the biggest deals in Indian Fintech startups.

Citrus pay is started by Jitendra Gupta and  Amrish Rau in 2011.  Citrus Pay has 10,000 + merchants and manages round 12 per cent of the Internet commerce market, valued at $24 billion, in the country. It handles a total Gross Business Value of $2.2 billion (or Rs 14,000 crore) and close to 10 million transactions.

“The agreement enables PayU to quickly bring additional innovative financial services to market for its business and consumer customers,” said Laurent le Moal, chief executive of PayU, terming the deal as “a significant milestone for both businesses and the fintech industry in India.” The merged entity will process a forecasted 150 million transactions in 2016, worth a combined $4.2 billion, and will grow at over 50% annually, according to le Moal. It is expected to reach more than 20 million customers and over two lakh merchants.

With the new agreement, Amrish Rau, Citrus Pay’s current CEO, will head PayU in India. Its founder Jitendra Gupta will help manage Citrus Pay’s credit arm, LazyPay, and its other co-founder Shailaz Nag will help grow the business via bank alliances. The third co-founder Nitin Gupta will leave the company.

Last year Freecharge has been acquired by Snapdeal for whooping 400M USD. There are least 7 companies in this area who are competing for market share. Some player are Paytm, CCavenue, Mobwiki, Razorpay, Instamojo etc.