PayU acquires consumer lending startup PaySense, to merge with LazyPay

Amidst various expansions, restructuring, and investment plans being carried out by the digital payment firm PayU in India and Southeast Asia, the Naspers-owned company has announced its next acquisition.

The Gurugram-based firm is set to acquire digital credit platform PaySense at a valuation of about $185 million. PaySense lets customers get loan approval online, select EMI plan and upload KYC documents.

Following the transaction PayU, which offers all forms of digital payment for online merchant transactions, is reportedly eyeing to merge its lending business Lazypay with PaySense. Importantly, PayU is an existing investor in PaySense and has already infused $65 million in the Mumbai-based venture.

Further, PayU has committed to invest $200 million in PaySense.

At present, PayU holds a 20% stake in PaySense. The deal will increase its stake to around 80% in the merged entity. As a part of the acquisition, Prashanth Ranganathan, the founder and CEO of PaySense, will lead PayU’s credit business in India as the CEO of the new enterprise.

The deal will also facilitate the exit of Nexus Ventures Partners, Jungle Venture and Rocketship, and the angel investors in PaySense.

The acquisition will help PayU to bolster its presence in the credit business and will work towards providing a broader fintech platform around core payments and lending business, said Siddhartha Jajodia, Global Head of Credit of PayU to TechCrunch.

Over the years, PayU has been acquiring several companies to ram up its payments ecosystem in India. Since the acquisition of consumer-facing payments startup Citrus Pay in 2016, it had acquired Wibmo, Zooz, and Iyzico.

Besides acquisitions in India, it also acquired Singapore’s largest digital payments firm Red Dot Payments to mark its entry in the SEA region. The company recently invested $11 million in wealth management startup Fisdom.