According to India Times, Amazon acquired Tapzo in a part-stock and part-cash deal valued at about $40-45 million in order to bolster Amazon Pay in India. Tapzo is an “all-in-one app” that aggregates over 40 different apps in one place such as cabs, food, bill payments, cricket scores, etc. Tapzo also said earlier today that it will be shutting down.
Founded by Ankur Singla, Avinash Vankadaru, Vishal Pal Chaudhary, and Vishrut Chalsani in 2010, Tapzo raised over $23 million in funding from American Express Ventures, Sequoia Capital India, and RB Investments Pte. Ltd. Tapzo currently has about 5 million users across 100 cities in India who used the app for more than 25 million transactions.
TechCrunch attempted to reach out to Singla and Amazon to confirm the deal. Amazon did not confirm or deny the deal. “Our commitment to the vision of a less-cash India remains the same,” said an Amazon spokesperson. “Our goal is to make it easier than ever before for customers to make digital payments by improving the customer experience, affordability, and daily routines.”
One of the problems that Tapzo addresses is that many smartphone owners in India uninstall apps in order to conserve storage space on their devices. By combining a number of app services into one central place, it makes it easier for smartphone users to select from a plethora of services without using up substantial storage space.
TechCrunch pointed out that Tapzo went through a number of pivots. The company started out as Akosha, which was a way for businesses to communicate with customers. Later the company became a digital assistant service called Helpchat. And then it became Tapzo after that.
Amazon Pay and Tapzo were already integrated with each other prior to the acquisition. For example, Tapzo and Amazon Pay have been running promotions where users would be able to get discounts on a number of services that are accessible through Tapzo.
“Tapzo app will be shutting down from 31 October 2018. Starting 1 September 2018, we will be switching off all the transactional categories,” said Tapzo in an email to its users via VCCircle.
