Infibeam To Invest $22.4 Mn In Payment Gateway CCAvenue, Plans To Merge Operations

Ahmedabad-based Infibeam is planning to merge with payment gateway CCAvenue.

In May 2016, Infibeam had invested about $6.7 Mn (INR 45 Cr) in the payment gateway. As per a recent filing, Infibeam currently holds 3.85% of equity shares in CCAvenue.

Infibeam has agreed to invest about $22.4 Mn (INR 150 Cr) for further acquiring 7.5% equity shares of CCAvenue, said the company in a regulatory filing. Subsequently, it plans for ‘amalgamation of CCAvenue into Infibeam by issuance of fresh shares subject to due diligence and regulatory approvals.’

The filings state that Infibeam raised $62.1 Mn (INR 416 Cr) as net proceeds from the IPO last year. The company’s total revenue of FY 2017 third quarter witnessed a 14% increase from the revenue in third quarter of FY 2016. From $13.5 Mn (INR 90.8 Cr) in Q3’16 it increased to $15.3 Mn (INR 102.7) Cr in Q3’17.

As on 13th February, 2017 the stock price of the company was INR 1369.40 and the market capitalisation of $1.09 Bn (INR 7312.33 Cr).

As per the filings, ‘Infibeam caters to B2E, B2B and B2C segment of business for its customers. Integration of Payment platform with logistic & warehousing, ad and domain registry along with data centre and data analytics, the value added services provided by Infibeam makes a full circle in providing all services under one roof to the customers.’

It further stated that ‘the merger of CCAvenue into Infibeam will be highly cash and profit accretive business which will result into a high growth opportunity under combined strength of more than a lakh merchants. Further details will be worked out for creating operating synergising for domestic and international markets which will result in quantum growth in the business of Infibeam.’

Headquartered in Mumbai, CCAvenue is a payment aggregator company, providing payment platform. It claims to help over 1 lakh merchants accept online payments through a spectrum of payment options including six major Credit Cards, 98+ Debit Cards, Amex EzeClick, 53+ Net Banking, 48 Bank IMPS, 17 Prepaid Instruments and up to 12 Multi Bank EMI options. It will also offers UPI (Unified Payments Interface) and will soon be adding BBPS (Bharat Bill Payment System) payment facility on its platform.

On the other hand, founded in 2007 by Vishal Mehta, Sachin Dalal and Neeru Sharma, Infibeam’s business can be divided into two parts- first the ecommerce website Infibeam.com and services business BuildaBazar (BaB) that provides customisable digital solutions and other value added services to enable merchants to set up online storefronts. It had more than 66,000 merchants at the end of December 2016.

In October 2015, Infibeam Incorporation became the first ecommerce company in the country to be listed with Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), after getting an approval to raise $69 Mn (INR 450 Cr) through initial public offering (IPO).