India’s largest mobile first financial services platform, Paytm, announced that it has become the majority shareholder of the entity formed through the merger of Nearbuy.com and Little Internet - to create India’s largest discovery and deals platform for local merchants. The existing shareholders of Nearbuy including Sequoia India, will also become shareholders of the merged entity.

This partnership will further strengthen Paytm’s offerings for offline merchants by enabling them to acquire new customers through deals.

Nearbuy and Little work with over 40,000 small and large merchants across food, beauty, travel and other categories. The combined entity will continue to enable customers to discover deals and save money whenever they step out, and also help merchants effectively utilize their inventory and acquire new customers. 

Paytm’s goal is to provide its fast-growing base of over 5 million merchants tools to expand their business, and to offer its customers the opportunity to buy all categories

of digital and physical goods. Paytm’s strategic holding in Nearbuy-Little will provide Paytm’s merchant partners an opportunity to offer deals to acquire new customers and grow their business. Additionally, Paytm will serve its large consumer base by showcasing a large number of exciting deals on its platforms. Paytm pioneered and is the leader of QR based mobile payments in India.

Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder & CEO – Paytm said, “This combination of Nearbuy and Little marks a great opportunity for us to reinforce our commitment to support small and large retailers in the new age of mobile commerce and Payments. I am sure consumers will love the greater selection and  reach of everyday deals and discount offers.”

Nearbuy.com founders Ankur Warikoo, Ravi Shankar and Snehesh Mitra said, “We couldn’t be more excited to partner with Paytm and build nearbuy + little into the absolute consumer choice for everything local. The industry is young and Paytm’s consumer and merchant reach will benefit us tremendously.”

Little Cofounders Manish Chopra and Satish Mani said, “We are proud that our team has built one of the largest deals platform in the country within 3 years. The merger of the 2 of India’s leading deals platforms in the country and the partnership with Paytm will help merchants and customers, bring business synergies and will further strengthen Paytm’s presence in the O2O space in India.”