Digital payments major Paytm has acquired New Delhi-headquartered technology startup Cube26. Cube26 specializes in developing Android based apps that its customers integrate in their devices/apps as add-on features. Paytm will expect to do the same, as part of its plans to expand its offerings to its users.
Cube26 has received funding from giants like Tiger Global and Indian ecommerce leader Flipkart. Their investments were more in the nature of seed funding to the tune of $7.7 million when the startup was launched about 3 years back in India. Prior to that the startup went by the name PredictGaze and had its origins in California, US.
Ultimately it boils down to a question of adding to the customer base and retaining as many of them as possible over a period of time. To that extent, the fundamentals of marketing remain the same irrespective of the business you are in. Paytm is trying to do exactly that by enlarging the list of services its users can enjoy once they log in.
Some of the areas that Cube26 has worked on include recognizing users, interpreting human gestures and even understanding their emotions. It has also moved on to machine learning and enterprise software.
This development on acquiring Cube26 by Paytm comes immediately after the report of its offering a spate of entertainment and news and other video offerings through Paytm Inbox. One can also recall some of the earlier acquisitions by Paytm - Little and Nearbuy were a couple of O2O startups that it added to its stable along with others such as Insider.in and m’loyal. While the former is a ticketing app and m’loyal is a customer loyalty program developed by MobiQuest.
It is also relevant to mention here that Alibaba, which has made investments in Paytm could be a driving force behind all these aggressive moves being made by it to position itself as a multiple service portal and move beyond being recognized as just a e-wallet app.