India's VC-backed Citrus Pay sold to Netherlands strategic
Citrus Pay, an India-based online and mobile payment solutions developer backed by Sequoia Capital, Ascent Capital and Beenos, has been acquired by Netherlands-based rival PayU.
PayU will pay $130 million for the business, which will be incorporated into its existing India payments platform PayU India. Citrus Pay's co-founders Amrish Rau and Jitendra Gupta will take prominent positions at PayU India, with Rau becoming CEO and Gupta heading Citrus Pay's credit arm LazyPay.
Sequoia first invested in Citrus Pay in 2012, committing an undisclosed amount of Series A funding. It then participated in the company's $5.5 million Series B in 2013 alongside Beenos and Japanese online payments company eContext Asia. Beenos, Sequoia and eContext then joined Ascent for Citrus Pay's $25 million Series C round last October.
The all-cash deal is the biggest acquisition in India's financial technology space since online retailer Snapdeal bought mobile wallet FreeCharge last year in a transaction reported to be worth more than $400 million. It is also PayU's second acquisition of an Indian mobile payments provider, following the purchase of Eashmart in 2014.
PayU is a unit of South African internet conglomerate Naspers Group, which is itself active in India. The group has made several investments in online retailer Flipkart, including leading a $1 billion round in 2014, and also manages Ibibo Group, a joint venture with China's Tencent Holdings that runs an online travel business, gaming platform and payment gateway. It also bought bus ticketing company RedBus in 2013.
"Today's announcement is a significant milestone for both businesses, as well as the fintech industry in India," said PayU CEO Laurent le Moal in a statement. "We are excited about the opportunity to capitalize on our shared heritage in payments and build a broader financial services proposition, something PayU is focused on across all of the 16 countries we operate in."
PayU India unifies multiple payment options in a single platform to provide greater convenience for online retailers and customers. Citrus Pay follows a similar strategy, with a payment gateway used by companies including Amazon India. The acquisition is expected to add 30 million users to PayU's customer base; PayU hopes to process $4.2 billion in payments across 150 million transactions by the end of 2016.
India's mobile and online payments space continues to attract investor interest; mobile wallets, which are seen as a safer and more convenient payment option than bank accounts or credit cards, are particularly appealing. Just this year Mobikwik and Paytm, two of the most active companies in this space, have raised more than $90 million and $60 million respectively.
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