Freecharge emerges with another bidder; Amazon interested in a $70-80 million deal

Freecharge, the payments arm of beleaguered ecommerce major Snapdeal, is in news these days. While several players such as PayTM, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Axis Bank and others have shown interest in acquiring the startup, and a new player has emerged. Amazon has put in a late bid of $70-80 million for the payments startup, and has also signed the term sheet. If the deal goes through, the ecommerce giant may merge Freecharge with its payments entity Amazon Pay. The development comes a little over two weeks after Axis Bank, the country’s third-largest private sector lender, emerged as one of the frontrunners to acquire Freecharge for about $60-$65 million.

Amazon India had recently received license by the Reserve Bank of India to operate a pre-paid payment instrument or wallet. The central bank issued the wallet license in the name of Amazon Online Distribution Services, which also operates Amazon Pay that allows users to transact with offline partners of Amazon and online for Amazon’s marketplace services on Amazon.in and Amazon Now. Thus, the acquisition of Freecharge will be the next step for the firm to realize its payments dream. Ironically, Freecharge was acquired by Jasper in 2015 in a cash-and-stock deal estimated at $400-450 million, in what was then the largest acquisition in the Indian startup space.