The Mobile Wallet acquires venture capital-backed payment platform Trupay

Fintech firm The Mobile Wallet (TMW) has acquired payment platform Trupay for an undisclosed amount in a stock deal that will help TMW expand its payment solutions, the companies said in a statement.

The Mobile Wallet Pvt Ltd, which runs TMW, was founded in 2015 by Vinay Kalantri – his third venture.

The company, which has no publicly declared external funding, offers a wallet-linked prepaid card powered by global payments firm Mastercard.

Trupay provides a plug-and-play payment platform that helps businesses transact with customers online or through mobile devices or in physical stores across sectors.

Once a merchant firm registers on the Trupay platform, it gets listed in the business directory on the app and customers can pay by just entering the merchant’s phone number.

TMW has around 60,000 merchants on its platform while Trupay has about 15,000 users.

The companies said the acquisition will help Mumbai-headquartered TMW provide Unified Payment Interface (UPI) and Bharat QR-enabled payment solutions to its existing merchant base and other businesses.

UPI is a real-time payments system developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) that enables digital transactions between banks.

Bharat QR is an integrated payment system that uses mobile phones to pay through debit or credit card by scanning a code at the merchant’s location.

With the new product suite, TMW said it plans to reach a merchant base of 10 lakh by March 2019.

“With the product suite of tmw and Trupay combined, we will be able to offer very cost-effective asset-light payment acceptance solutions to merchants,” said Kalantri. “We believe that QR code will drive the digital payments of the future and major use cases will be the small retailers.”

Trupay was founded in 2015 by former Indian Oil Corporation employee Narendar Kumar, IIM-Calcutta alumnus Rahul Gochhwal and IIM-Bangalore graduate Vivek Lohcheb.

Gurgaon-headquartered Protinus Infotech Pvt. Ltd, which operates Trupay, had raised Rs 4.5 crore (around $700,000) last July from a clutch of investors including M&S Partners Pte. Ltd and Kae Capital.

Trupay co-founder Rahul Gochhwal said the addition of UPI and Bharat QR to TMW’s existing product suite was a “recipe for hyper-growth”.

TMW offers a Mastercard-powered prepaid card in association with RBL Bank along with a virtual prepaid card. Customers can spend their wallet balance through these cards at more than 20 lakh point-of-sale (PoS) machines and for e-commerce, recharge and utility bill payments.

Last September, TMW had entered a global partnership for blockchain-enabled transactions. Its SendX Global Token will involve the use of blockchain technology at the retail level in India for the first time.

TMW’s competition in the crowded fintech space includes Softbank-backed True Balance, Paytm, Mobikwik and Flipkart’s PhonePe, among others.

Gurgaon-based Balancehero India Pvt. Ltd, which operates mobile balance checking app True Balance, had last month entered the fintech services segment with the launch of a mobile wallet.

VCCircle reported last week that the firm is set to get a fresh fund infusion.

Paytm and Mobikwik had both started out as mobile recharge platforms, but have since diversified their offerings. They now offer bill payments, travel bookings, movie tickets, and payments to online and offline commerce platforms through their respective wallet services.