India’s 1-stop app aggregator is shutting shop. This was announced by Team Tapzo on Google Play Store. While the official reason has not been announced yet, reports over the weekend talked of the app being acquired by Amazon.
A hit with customers with over 5 million downloads, tapzo’s journey, albeit not without a few hiccups, was an every start-ups’ dream. Apropos their closing down, they have asked their customers to initiate refunds for their cash or in-app subscriptions like Digital Gold. The platform already closed its transactional categories from September 1, & will be officially be shutting down from October 31, 2018.
In what can be seen as a move to strengthen its hold in India’s growing digital payments market, Amazon Pay, the payments arm of Amazon India, has decided to Acquire the Sequoia-backed tapzo, said news agency Press Trust of India (PTI). However, till the time of the writing of this piece, there still wasn’t any official confirmation of the acquisition.
Tapzo is a platform for aggregating over 35 apps across categories like bill payment, news, cabs, cricket, horoscopes, food, recharge & more; with apps comprising Swiggy, Uber, Ola, Nearby among others. On its Website, it claims to have garnered support of more than 5 million users. By tapping into tapzo’s popularity base, Amazon may want to bolster its standing in digital payments industry & also help grow the usage of Amazon Pay in India.
Reports peg the acquisition deal at about US $35-40 million.
On being asked about the takeover, an Amazon spokesperson neither confirmed nor denied the deal, reports TechCrunch.
From Akosha to Helpchat & then tapzo in 2016, the app aggregator, cofounded by Ankur Singla &Vishal Pal Chaudhary, underwent multiple name changes since its launch in 2010. Headquartered in Bengaluru, India the platform raised Rs 100 crore in funding from Sequoia India & Ru-Net (May 2015). It was then followed by an undisclosed amount in a round led by American Express Ventures, reported PTI.
It was just recently that Google had announced that it was “unifying all payment offerings globally” & re-naming Tez to Google Pay.
With markets agog with digital payment services like Paytm, PhonePe, Google Pay, Mobikwik & others, Amazon may seek to get a wider push among its rivals in India.
