Aetlo Tech, a Mumbai-based blockchain startup incorporated last year by two IIT-Bombay graduates, has been acqui-hired by UK-based banking and financial services company Page Solutions.
“This acquisition further strengthens Page’s position in providing the first and last blockchain solution a customer will ever need from start-up to global enterprise, while integrating seamlessly with its other enterprise applications,” said Sridhar Dasari, operations chief at Page Solutions.
As part of the deal, co-founders Rupesh Mishra and Adarsh Kumar and three others will move to Page’s office in Madhapur, a suburb of Hyderabad, Mishra told VCCircle. The team will work as part of a new subsidiary for Page’s blockchain solutions called PageChain Technology Pvt. Ltd.
Speeding up the buyout timetable
Lack of interest from Indian health insurance firms in the blockchain management of claims fuelled the early buyout, Mishra said.
“While we worked with several companies such as Tata AIG General Insurance Company, and developed proofs of concepts, the blockchain solutions were never deployed,” Mishra said, adding that the lack of interest stemmed directly from the low volume of health insurance in India.
It was only while working in the trade finance sector that the startup came across Page, asking it to deploy a blockchain solution for a global bank, the co-founder said.
Soon enough an acquisition followed.
In the banking, financial services and insurance sector, Mishra said his company would work with Page to advance core banking systems. “CBSes necessitate a process called reconciliation, which results in banks spending a lot of money. Then there is the pain point of keeping data safe, despite sharing it with a consortium of banks or insurance companies. Blockchain can solve all of these issues,” he said.
Page offers solutions to banks for the deployment of services such as CBS and counts global banks from Europe, West Asia (the Middle East) and South East Asia as clients.
Aetlo Tech, the startup, was one of the participants at the FinTech Valley Summit last year, organised by the Andhra Pradesh government.
