In a bid to bolster focus on online to offline commerce, Paytm has acquired hyper-local services marketplace Near.in. The deal is valued between $1.5 million and $2 million, according to a report from the Economic Times.
As as result of the acquisition, Near.in co-founders Lomesh Dutta and Suni Goyal will join Paytm as vice president and rarly investors in the company will exit. Founded in 2014, Near.in operates in the hyperlocal services space across categories such as home needs, health and wellness, events and skills. Currently, the firm provides its services in Delhi, Gurgaon, Bangalore and Mumbai.
“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,”
said Kiran Vasireddy, Senior Vice-President and head of investments at Paytm.
This is the first acquisition by Paytm, since it received a massive of $680 million from Alibaba Group and Ant Financial in September. Paytm does more than 100 million transactions of various digital and physical goods every month.