B2B payments firm PayMate buys lending platform Z2P

PayMate India Pvt. Ltd, a business-to-business (B2B) digital payments firm, has announced the acquisition of peer-to-peer online lending platform Z2P Technologies for an undisclosed amount.

Mumbai-based PayMate said in a statement that the acquisition is expected to be completed by the end of this month.

The firm runs a proprietary B2B cloud-based payments platform that aims to help both large enterprises and SMEs transition to digital payments, and manage vendor and customer payments as well as invoicing. It claims to have 20,000 businesses registered on its platform.

PayMate said the acquisition offers it a platform to provide credit to small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

“We will leverage Z2P and PayMate’s technology and analytics to speed up the credit application and the credit decision-making processes for SMEs and provide supply chain financing solutions to our large corporate clients,” said Ajay Adiseshann, PayMate's founder and chief executive officer.

Run by Zaitech Technology Pvt. Ltd, Z2P was founded in 2016 by IIT Madras graduate Rajat Yadav. The Bhopal-based team will relocate to Mumbai following the acquisition.

“Technology and data-driven actionable intelligence for lending, along with machine learning, is what Z2P has built over the past few years,” said Z2P's Yadav.

PayMate was founded in 2006 by serial entrepreneur Ajay Adiseshann and Probir Roy. Before that, Adiseshann ran a mobile content solutions firm Coruscant Tech, which was sold to Mukta Arts. He had also started a web development company called Webresource.

Co-founder Roy has held various technology and strategy-related positions in International Atomic Energy Agency, Department of Atomic Energy India, Star TV India and EuroRSCG.

Lightbox Ventures and Mayfield had earlier invested in the firm, which has raised around $14 million in external funding till date.

Deals and acquisitions in the space
In another recent acquisition in the fintech space, income tax return e-filing platform ClearTax acquired TOOTL, an infotainment app which offers personalised content using predictive tools, for an undisclosed amount last month.

A number of startups in the segment have raised funding of late.

Earlier this month, PaisaDukan.com, a P2P lending marketplace owned by Mumbai-based fintech startup BigWin Infotech, secured $225,000 (Rs 1.5 crore) through angel investment.

Before that, Rubique, a Mumbai-based online marketplace for financial products raised an undisclosed sum in a round led by Japan’s Recruit Group and Russian venture capital firm Emery Capital.