Paytm Acquires Consumer Behaviour Prediction Platform, Shifu For $8 Mn

Alibaba-backed mobile payment and ecommerce platform, Paytm, has acquired Delhi-based consumer behaviour prediction platform, Shifu, in an $8 Mn (INR 53 Cr.) deal. With this, Shifu’s 20 member team, including the three founders, will join Paytm.

The startup is looking to enhance its consumer experiences on the Paytm platform. Speaking on the development, Kiran Vasireddy, Senior VP (business) at Paytm said, “By integrating their technology & behavioural modelling with Paytm app, we will be able to offer a highly intuitive and personalized experience to our users.  This acquisition will give further impetus to our focus on artificial intelligence, which will bring the next wave of disruption in ecommerce. By predicting user behavior based on past usage, location and other data points, our platform will be able to offer relevant recommendations to our users.”

Founded about 3 years ago by Prashant Singh, Deepansh Jain and Michael Massey, Shifu, is a personal assistant app, which helps you record reminders with respect to time, place and some activities.

The startup looks to make smartphone’s experience more intuitive, personalised and anticipatory by making use of the data usage. Basically, it mines the smartphone usage data and algorithmically estimating how much of free time is available at any given point of time.

The company had raised seed funding from a cluster of angel investors, including a top tech entrepreneur in Delhi.

This is a part of Paytm’s plan to invest in about $150 Mn in over a dozen startups in order to build a complete digital ecosystem. The company plans to back or acquire at least a dozen companies with this fund.

Recently, Paytm acquired hyperlocal services marketplace Near.in in a cash-and-stock deal in a bid to strengthen its presence in online to offline space. Prior to that, Paytm invested in online aggregator for auto rickshaw rides and a hyperlocal delivery platform Jugnoo. Besides, it also invested in Mumbai-based logistics analytics firm, LogiNext.

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