Confirming what had been reported close to four months ago, Shopclues has now confirmed, that it will be acquiring Momoe — a mobile payments startup which received $1.2 Million from IDG Ventures in its latest round. The deal is part-cash, part-stock in nature.
Reports from the Economic Times suggest, that Momoe is being valued anywhere between $10-$12 Million, pretty much conferring with the $8-$10 Million mark which came up in previous reports.
ShopClues’ idea behind acquiring Momoe Technologies to do get every other ecommerce upstart is running after right now — digital payments. The company is planning to integrate Momoe’s payment gateway on its platform.
Interestingly, ShopClues, which is yet to have an official presence in Bangalore, will finally get an office on India’s startup planet with this acquisition. All of Momoe’s founders will be joining the ShopClues senior management in various avenues, including, but not limited to design, technology among others.
Talking about the acquisition but staying mum on deal size, ShopClues CEO Sanjay Sethi said,
We got five very senior people in the company as a part of this acquisition, which is the most exciting part.
Momoe offers a unique cashless payment system. While PayTm and others offer a you a mobile wallet where in you’re required to deposit money through credit/debit cards, Momoe allows you to use your cards directly by storing in all necessary details. Cutting it short, Momoe is more like a virtual credit card in your pocket.
The startup had, last year raised a $1.2 Million round from IDG Ventures. At the time of that particular fundraising, Momoe was expecting to handle as much as INR 3,000 crore ($500 Million) worth of transactions in the coming 18 months. The company’s expansion plans also included tie-ups with more than 500 merchants in the next few months.
Momoe allows users to view their live bills at brick & mortar outlets like restaurants, grocery stores etc. and checkout at their convenience without having to wait for their bills. On the merchant side, Momoe provides insights on consumer preferences and being able to reach out to consumers with right offers that their customers would value.
The merchant side benefit will help ShopClues, finally initiate its own, semi pay wallet service for merchants.Sethi further adds,
Momoe comes with a working merchant base, PCI compliance which would have taken us 8-12 months to obtain and banking relationships. Building a payments business requires a different DNA.
Adding to the comment, Momoe CEO Utkarsh Biradar said,
We will continue our focus on innovative merchant solutions, extending our payments proposition to a broader array of merchant services for online and offline commerce. WE will also build on emerging payment methods such as IMPS and UPI to bring a hassle free shopping experience to consumers
Its is learnt that while there was interest from multiple e-commerce and payments players, the leadership at Momoe found “a strong culture fit” with ShopClues.
