Deals and discovery platforms Little and Nearbuy.com have merged to create India’s largest deals and discovery platform for local merchants. And in this merged entity, online payments major Paytm will be the majority shareholder.
According to a statement from the company, this will help Paytm further strengthen its offerings for offline merchants by enabling them to acquire new customers through deals.
Despite being merged into one entity, both the brands will continue to operate independently.
Nearbuy and Little work with over 40,000 small and large merchants across food, beauty, travel and other categories. “The combined entity will continue to enable customers to discover deals and save money whenever they step out, and also help merchants effectively utilize their inventory and acquire new customers,” Paytm said in a statement.
To the merged entity, Paytm will add value to its 5 million+ merchant partners by giving them an opportunity to offer deals to acquire new customers and grow their business. And not just merchant partners, Paytm users will also be able to avail deals across categories on the platform.
“This combination of Nearbuy and Little marks a great opportunity for us to reinforce our commitment to support small and large retailers in the new age of mobile commerce and Payments. I am sure consumers will love the greater selection and reach of everyday deals and discount offers,” Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder and CEO, Paytm said.
The founders of Little, Manish Chopra and Satish Mani will move on from the organization.
“The merger of the 2 of India’s leading deals platforms in the country and the partnership with Paytm will help merchants and customers, bring business synergies and will further strengthen Paytm’s presence in the O2O space in India,” Manish and Satish said.
Nearbuy, which was initially called Groupon, separated from its parent Groupon and rebranded itself as Nearbuy after Sequoia Capital invested in $20 million in the entity.
“We couldn’t be more excited to partner with Paytm and build nearbuy + little into the absolute consumer choice for everything local. The industry is young and Paytm’s consumer and merchant reach will benefit us tremendously,” Ankur Warikoo, Ravi Shankar and Snehesh Mitra, founders of Nearbuy.com said.