Cashfree Payments, an online payment platform, has acquired Zecpe, for an undisclosed amount. With Zecpe’s technology, online businesses can improve their checkout conversion rates by simplifying the checkout process for customers. In a press release on February 28, 2023, Cashfree Payments announced that Zecpe would function as a fully-owned subsidiary, offering the same services to e-commerce businesses. This acquisition has resulted in an improvement in Cashfree Payments’ ability to provide one-click checkout capabilities to its customers.
While Cashfree has not revealed the financials involved in the deal, sources indicate that the acquisition could have valued Zecpe at approximately $10 million to $12 million.
Cashfree, backed by SBI, allegedly laid off approximately 13% of its workforce, or around 80 employees, last month. However, the fintech company claims that it downsized only 6-8% of its employee base as part of its retrenchment plan.
Cashfree Payments has appointed Hriday Agarwal, the founder of Zecpe, as the head of the e-commerce checkout as part of the acquisition deal. Furthermore, the employees of Zecpe will also be joining Cashfree Payments to assist in scaling the product.
Cashfree Payments CEO and co-founder Akash Sinha expressed his excitement about acquiring Zecpe, saying that the two companies’ products complement each other well. He believes this will make a great addition to Cashfree’s D2C Payments Suite and boost their one-click checkout capabilities, further solidifying their position as leaders in the SMB space.
Shopflo, a company that facilitates e-commerce, received seed funding from Tiger Global last year to access the burgeoning market.
In the meantime, Cashfree has stated that the Zecpe acquisition will enhance its D2C checkout capabilities and provide merchants with an improved end-to-end checkout and payment experience.
As a result of the acquisition of Zecpe, Cashfree Payments will likely expand its range of value-added services, including reducing Return to Origin (RTO) rates, detecting fraud, and pre-filling addresses. This is because Zecpe’s one-click checkout platform is designed to improve the customer experience during the checkout process, which can reduce RTO rates and the potential for fraud detection. Additionally, the platform can automatically fill in a customer’s address information, making the checkout process more seamless.
Sinha added that the solution provided by Zecpe is in line with Cashfree Payments’ product strategy. The strategy of Cashfree Payments is to prioritize the benefits to the end customers of their merchants.
Cashfree is an Indian payment gateway established in 2015 by Sinha and Reeju Datta. The company facilitates online payments and payouts for businesses in India. In 2021, the firm received strategic funding from the country’s largest lender, the State Bank of India (SBI), at a post-money valuation of $200 million.
Agarwal said that India’s Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) space is rapidly expanding. Therefore, it presents an excellent opportunity to assist e-commerce businesses in boosting their conversion rates and minimizing Cash on Delivery (COD) fraud and returns. He added that they have extensive knowledge of this space because they work with a large network of well-known brands.
Cashfree Payments asserts that it has over 300,000 merchants using its services to collect payments and make payouts through all available methods.
As part of its plan to expand its presence in the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region, the company had previously acquired Telr, a prominent payment service provider in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
The acquisition of Zecpe by Cashfree Payments has significantly enhanced its one-click checkout capabilities and improved the overall customer experience. By simplifying the checkout process for e-commerce businesses, Cashfree Payments can help its customers to enhance their checkout conversion rates and minimize fraud and returns. This move will likely strengthen Cashfree Payments’ position in the market and help it compete more effectively with other players in the space. This acquisition is a strategic move by Cashfree Payments to expand its product offerings and provide more value to its customers.
