Payments and banking solutions provider Cashfree Payments, which counts State Bank of India, Apis Partners, Smilegate Investment and Y Combinator as its investors, on Tuesday said it has acquired Gurugram-based fintech startup in an effort to scale up its fintech exposure for ecommerce users.
The acquisition of Zecpe marks Cashfree’s second bet, although the financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.
Post buyout, Zecpe, which simplifies the checkout process for customers of direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands, will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cashfree Payments, said a statement on Tuesday.
Zecpe’s founder Hriday Agarwal will join Cashfree Payments’ team to lead the e-commerce checkout vertical. The fintech firm’s staff will also join Cashfree along with him to help scale the product further.
Zecpe, which has been a bootstrapped startup so far, helps merchants increase conversion rates, supporting incremental monetisation and scaling.
It is pertinent to mention here that Zecpe’s acquisition comes on the heels of fresh layoffs at Cashfree last month. The company had let go of around 80 employees after periodically evaluating performances and processes.
With this acquisition, Cashfree aims to step up its direct-to-consumer (D2C) checkout capabilities and give its merchants a better end-to-end checkout and payment experience.
The deal will also enable Cashfree Payments to provide additional value-added services like a return to origin (RTO) reduction, fraud detection, and address pre-filling, among others, the statement added.
"We are certain that this acquisition will strengthen our D2C one-click checkout capabilities and further elevate our leadership position in the SMB space. At Cashfree Payments, we are focused on offering the widest range of payments solutions and thereby constantly evolving our product suite to cater to the changing needs of our merchants," said Akash Sinha, Co-founder and chief executive officer at Cashfree Payments.
Founded in 2015 by Sinha and Reeju Datta, Cashfree offers full-stack payments solutions to businesses in India, allowing them to collect payments and make payouts via different digital payment instruments. It claims to have more than 300,000 merchants to collect payments and make payouts with simple 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 pits against the likes of Razorpay, Pine Labs, BillDesk, and Stripe, among others.
Earlier, Cashfree Payments had acquired Telr, a payment service provider operating in UAE and Saudi Arabia, as a part of its strategy to expand its footprint in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region. Besides these geographies, the company also operates in the US and Canada.