Amazon Pay Receives $33.5 Mn Funding Boost From Its Parent Entity

Amazon has invested $33.5 Mn (INR 230 Cr) in its digital payments arm Amazon Pay. The funds came from Singapore-based Amazon Corporate Holdings and Amazon.com.incs, as per RoC filings.

“Since May 2017, Amazon has invested more than $100 Mn (INR 685 Cr) in Amazon Pay.”

The latest fundraise comes just three months after an infusion of $30 Mn in March 2018. At that time, Amazon Pay India head Mahendra Nerurkar had said that the company would continue to invest aggressively in its digital payments arm over the next several months.

With the latest funding, Amazon is looking to increase traction on Amazon Pay with cashback offers for shopping on its site. During Prime Day sale, which kicked off on July 16, Amazon is offering cashbacks of INR 300. Also, on eve of its fifth anniversary last month, it offered INR 250 cash back to customers.

This shows the aggressiveness with which Amazon is aiming to penetrate the Indian market while competing with local digital payment biggies like Flipkart’s PhonePe and Paytm.

Amazon is also looking to push Amazon Pay beyond its platform to third-party online merchants as well as to offline touchpoints.

Recently, Amazon invested $5 Mn in digital payments company ToneTag. ToneTag is now looking to roll out new payment modes for Amazon in the next three to four months.

Amazon Pay started its journey in India in 2014. Here’s a quick look at its journey so far.

• December 2014: Invested $10 Mn in Bengaluru-based gift card technology and retail startup, QwikCilver Solutions (as of now, it has also merged its e-gift cards solution into Amazon Pay)
• 2016: Announced the acquisition of Noida-based payment gateway EMVANTAGE Payments
• March 2016: Applied for a semi-closed wallet license with the RBI, which it received a year later
• December 2016: Launched Pay Balance, a payment option similar to mobile wallets but limited to transactions within the platform
• April 2017: Amazon India secured a licence from the RBI to operate a prepaid payment instrument (PPI)
• May 2017: Received $10.45 Mn (INR 67 Cr) funding
• July 2017: Received another investment of $20 Mn
• October 2017: Amazon increased the authorised capital of its payments arm from $61.5 Mn (INR 400 Cr) to $307.7 Mn (INR 2,000 Cr)
• October 2017: Amazon pumped $40 Mn (INR 260 Cr) funding into Pay
• March 2018: Amazon Pay raised $30 Mn (INR 195 Cr) from its parent entity

[The development was reported by ET.]

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