Bangalore-based fintech Instamojo, has announced that it has acquired Times Internet-owned startup GetMeAShop. GetMeAShop is a lesser-known Gurgaon-based startup which lets SMEs come online through its wide range of products. The startup is owned by Times Internet. This marks the first-ever acquisition for Instamojo.
Instamojo helps small and medium businesses to send and accept online payments, along with helping them create online stores to sell their products. Ont he other hand, GetMeAShop runs a platform allowing businesses to set up their website to build an online store. This makes it easier for the merchants or individuals to engage with and sell to their customers through social apps.
Along with website and online store builder, the SaaS platform also offers tools for logistics support, CRM, native Android and iOS mobile apps support, and social selling via WhatsApp and Facebook. It also provides marketing tools via different means, including SMS, Email, push notifications and data analytics.
With GetMeAShop, Instamojo plans to introduce SAAS offerings to its existing merchants.
Talking about the acquisition, Instamojo CEO and founder Sampad Swain says, “We are super pumped and excited about the future as GetMeAShop (GMAS) will help us take our mission to make Indian MSMEs truly enterprising.”
Swain further mentions that Instamojo will now look to build a “full-fledged operating system” for small businesses coming online. This upcoming product could well be a competitor to the likes of Zoho in India and companies like Intuit elsewhere.
Retail is a massively lucrative pie in India. Various estimates put the the overall value of the Indian retail market anywhere between $600-$700 billion. Yet, there are no definite numbers since a lot of retail in India happens at small corner mom and pop stores (kirana stores) wherien transactions are mostly off the books. Offline retails still comprises well over 90% of the overall retail due to the presence of these very ‘kirana’ stores.
Off late however, Indians have come online at an aggressive pace, reaching over 500 million internet users by the end of 2019. This has prompted a lot of startups to bring these offline stores online, thus allowing them to increase business and create a business in itself on this model. GetMeAShop is one such startup trying to cash-in on the opportunity.
Pushkal Srivastava, founder of GetMeAShop said in a statement: “With a common mission to enable MSMEs it’s a partnership which will give us distribution specific to the target segment we’ve been going after for all these years. And with our full-stack SaaS offering for MSMEs with web/ commerce builder, CRM and analytics built-in we augment the existing offerings of Instamojo perfectly.”
Instamojo was launched in 2012 as a payment gateway for MSMEs. Later, the company branched into an e-commerce platform for merchants to list and sell their products and services online. The company has also launched its lending product named MojoCapital as well as last-mile logistics service called MojoXPress, thus providing an end-to-end integrated solution to small merchants.
The company claims to have 1.2 million merchants on its platform and is on track to have more than 2 million merchants by the end of this year.
Media reports also suggest, that along with selling GetMeAShop, Times Internet is also making an investment in Instamojo, in a deal worth $5 million.
