Cashfree Payments Acquires One-Click Checkout Company, Zecpe to Strengthen Its D2C Payments Suite

• Acquisition to further enhance D2C checkout capabilities of Cashfree Payments, giving merchants elevated end-to-end checkout and payment experience
• Zecpe to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Cashfree Payments
• Zecpe Founder to join Cashfree Payments as Head, E-commerce – Checkout, to help scale the product further

Cashfree Payments, India's leading payments and API banking company, announced its strategic acquisition of Zecpe, a one-click checkout company. Zecpe enables e-commerce businesses to improve checkout conversion by making the process quick and seamless for customers. Zecpe will now operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cashfree Payments.

With this acquisition, Cashfree Payments will further enhance its Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) checkout capabilities and give its merchants an elevated end-to-end checkout and payment experience. Zecpe helps merchants increase conversion rates, supporting incremental monetisation and scaling. This will provide a seamless flow to Cashfree Payments' existing merchant base. This acquisition will also enable Cashfree Payments to offer additional value-added services like Return to Origin (RTO) reduction, fraud detection, and address pre-filling, among others. The solution provided by Zecpe is in line with Cashfree Payments’ product strategy which focuses on the benefits to end customers of their merchants.

Akash Sinha, CEO and Co-Founder, Cashfree Payments said, "It gives us immense pleasure to announce our strategic acquisition of Zecpe. We see immense synergies between our existing products and the solutions offered by Zecpe, making it an excellent addition to our D2C Payments Suite enabled for e-commerce businesses. We are certain that this acquisition will strengthen our D2C one-click checkout capabilities and further elevate our leadership position in the SMB space. At Cashfree Payments, we are focused on offering the widest range of payments solutions and thereby constantly evolving our product suite to cater to the changing needs of our merchants."

Hriday Agarwal, Founder of Zecpe, will join the Cashfree Payments' team as Head, E-commerce – Checkout. The employees of Zecpe will also join Cashfree Payments along with him, to help scale the product further.

Talking about the acquisition Hriday Agarwal said, "We are very excited to become part of one of the leading payments companies in India and will work together to grow our business further. D2C space is exploding in India and presents a fantastic opportunity to help e-commerce players increase their conversion rates and reduce COD fraud and returns. Since we have one of the largest networks of prominent brands working with us, we know this space very well. Businesses across different industries use our solutions today. We see a natural fitment with Cashfree Payments' payments stack. We believe that integrating Zecpe's solution with the company's offerings will enable end-to-end checkout and payment solutions to clients. The products that we have developed will benefit from the scale that Cashfree Payments has built over the years."

Cashfree Payments currently powers over 3,00,000 merchants to collect payments and make payouts via all available methods with simple integration. The company has direct integrations with banks, card networks and third-party players for the highest success rates. It strives for continuous innovation to anticipate merchant needs and develop industry-leading products. Cashfree Payments has been a preferred payments platform for e-Commerce and D2C companies such as Nykaa, FirstCry, Nature's Basket, BigBasket, Zomato, Noise, Bella Vita Organic, MyFitness among others. The company provides solutions such as Payment Gateway, Buy Now Pay Later, Cashgram, Easy split, Payment links, Instant refunds, and Instant Settlements, which are well suited for e-commerce and D2C businesses.

Cashfree Payments had previously acquired Telr, a leading Payment Service Provider (PSP) in UAE and Saudi Arabia, as a part of its strategy to expand its footprint in the MENA region.

With over 50% market share among payment processors, Cashfree Payments today leads the way in bulk disbursals in India with Cashfree Payments Payouts. India's largest lender, SBI has invested in Cashfree Payments, underscoring the company's role in building a robust payments ecosystem. Cashfree Payments works closely with all leading banks to build the core payments and banking infrastructure that powers the company's products and is also integrated with major platforms such as Shopify, Wix, Paypal, Amazon Pay, Paytm and Google Pay. Apart from India, Cashfree Payments products are used in eight other countries including the USA, Canada and UAE.

About Cashfree Payments

Cashfree Payments is a leading payment and API banking solutions company. It provides full-stack payments solutions enabling businesses in India to collect payments and make payouts via all available methods with simple integration. Cashfree Payments' offerings include an advanced and easy way to integrate payment gateways, a split payment solution for marketplaces, bank account verification API, Lending disbursals solution and Auto Collect -- a virtual account solution to match inbound payments to customers. Founded by IIIT Hyderabad alumnus Akash Sinha and IIT Kharagpur graduate Reeju Datta, www.cashfree.com is among the leading payment service providers in India processing transactions worth USD 40 Billion annually. It has leveraged technology to lead payment disbursals in India with more than 50% market share among payment processors. Cashfree Payments enables more than 3,00,000 businesses with payment collections, vendor payouts, wage payouts, bulk refunds, expense reimbursements, loyalty and rewards. Apart from India, Cashfree Payments products are used in eight other countries including the USA, Canada, and UAE. Cashfree Payments is backed by Silicon Valley investor Y Combinator, Apis Partners, State Bank of India (SBI), and was incubated by PayPal.

Cashfree Payments partners with Sony Entertainment and Sony LIV as Payments Partner for Shark Tank India Season 2

Leading payments and API banking solutions company, Cashfree Payments, has partnered with Sony Entertainment Television and Sony LIV as the 'Payments Partner' for Shark Tank India season 2. The partnership aligns with the company's vision of enabling India's budding entrepreneurs to turn their ideas into successful and scalable businesses. This is Cashfree Payments' second consecutive year of partnering with Shark Tank India which is set to premiere on 2nd January, 2023 at 10pm.

In the first season of Shark Tank India, 67 Indian businesses got investments out of the 198 pitches, serving as a significant boost to the Indian entrepreneurial landscape. Additionally, the show instilled enthusiasm about entrepreneurship amongst viewers of all ages. The second season aims to have a bigger impact with more episodes, pitches, and cracked business deals. It will have 50 episodes and the season will premiere on January 2, 2023.

Having enabled more than 3,00,000 merchants with state-of-the-art payments and API banking solutions, this partnership is a further testament to Cashfree Payments' commitment to the Make in India initiative.

Akash Sinha, Co-Founder and CEO, Cashfree Payments said, "We are excited to further our partnership with Shark Tank India for the second year in a row. The first season proved to be quite impactful, providing impetus to entrepreneurship and innovation. At Cashfree Payments, we value the entrepreneurial spirit and understand the importance of an enabling startup ecosystem."

"India's digital payments growth story is fuelled by a surge in the number of startups not just in metros but across tier 2 & 3 cities. These innovative businesses rely on Cashfree Payments' safe and trusted payments stack to scale their business. We believe this association goes a long way towards our philosophy of fostering innovation in the Indian startup ecosystem, which deserves to be encouraged and celebrated," Sinha added.

Sandeep Mehrotra, Head – Ad Sales, Network Channels, Sony Pictures Networks India said, "The revolutionary change that Shark Tank India has ushered into the mindsets of the viewers about business and entrepreneurship is a testimony to the impact that the property has created. We are thrilled to be bringing back another exciting season of Shark Tank India and welcome onboard Cashfree Payments as our Payments Partner. Together with Cashfree Payments, we are positive to take a step ahead and to further expand the horizon of Indian entrepreneurship. We are looking forward to an extended partnership with them."

Ranjana Mangla, Head Ad Sales Revenue, Sony LIV | Culver Max Entertainment, said, "Shark Tank India has revolutionised reality shows in India. This show has presented the audience with a unique viewing experience that is both educational and entertaining. This show is an excellent platform for brands and marketers to drive deep purposeful advertising in a highly engaged environment. It's an honour to partner with Cashfree Payments for the second year in a row for Shark Tank India, to bring forth unique integrations to promote brand messaging through contextual advertising."

With over 50% market share among payment processors, Cashfree Payments today leads the way in bulk disbursals in India with its product Payouts. Recently, India's largest lender, SBI invested in Cashfree Payments underscoring the company's role in building a robust payments ecosystem. Cashfree Payments works closely with all leading banks to build the core payments and banking infrastructure that powers the company's products and is also integrated with major platforms such as Shopify, Wix, Paypal, Amazon Pay, Paytm and Google Pay. Apart from India, Cashfree Payments’ products are used in eight other countries including the USA, Canada and UAE.

About Cashfree Payments

Cashfree Payments is a leading payment and API banking solutions company. It provides full-stack payments solutions enabling businesses in India to collect payments and make payouts via all available methods with simple integration. Cashfree Payments' offerings include an advanced and easy way to integrate payment gateways, a split payment solution for marketplaces, bank account verification API, and Auto Collect -- a virtual account solution to match inbound payments to customers.

Founded by IIIT Hyderabad alumnus Akash Sinha and IIT Kharagpur graduate Reeju Datta, www.cashfree.com is among the leading payment service providers in India processing transactions worth USD 40 Billion annually. It has leveraged technology to lead payment disbursals in India with more than 50% market share among payment processors.

Cashfree Payments enables more than 3,00,000 businesses with payment collections, vendor payouts, wage payouts, bulk refunds, expense reimbursements, loyalty and rewards. Apart from India, Cashfree Payments products are used in eight other countries including the USA, Canada, and UAE. Cashfree Payments is backed by Silicon Valley investor Y Combinator, Apis Partners, State Bank of India (SBI), and was incubated by PayPal.

Meesho Partners With Cashfree Payments to Provide Instant Refunds to Customers

Meesho, India’s fastest growing internet commerce company, today announced its partnership with Cashfree Payments, India’s leading payments and API banking solutions company, to enable instant refunds for all Cash on Delivery (COD) orders placed via Meesho’s platform. This integration of Cashfree Payments is set to enhance the shopping experience of all Meesho users while also minimizing the need for manual intervention in certain orders.

Traditionally, in India, COD has been the preferred mode of payment especially for users from tier-II+ markets. Reducing the overall turnaround time taken to process refund payouts will enhance customer experience and also increase their trust towards online transactions. Through this partnership, Meesho aims to successfully process each refund payout in under 2 hours and eliminate drops in the payout funnel caused by technical failures or bank downtime. This entire refund process is automated by Cashfree Payments’ bulk disbursal offering ‘Payouts’. Further, the integration with Cashfree Payments will automate supplier payouts and also enable payout via UPI.

Commenting on the partnership, Kirti Varun Avasarala, Chief Product Officer, Meesho said, “In India, Cash on Delivery (COD) continues to be a preferred payment mode. We’ve noticed that any unexpected delay or hassle caused in processing refunds can cause inconvenience and lead to trust deficit. Meesho’s aims to become the preferred shopping destination for the next billion Indian consumers and our partnership with Cashfree Payments will address a very important aspect in the users’ journey and help us move closer to this goal."

Reeju Datta, Co-Founder, Cashfree Payments said, "We are glad to collaborate with Meesho in solving the problem of slow refunds, especially in case of COD orders. Our bulk disbursal product, ‘
Payouts’ will help Meesho delight its customers with faster refunds by crediting the refund amount to the customer's bank account in under 2 hours by automating the process. Queries around delayed refunds are a major source of customer tickets for e-commerce businesses, and we look forward to help Meesho reduce such queries to nil."

According to a recent report by data.ai (formerly App Annie), Meesho was the most downloaded e-commerce app in the world last year. Over the course of 2022, the company will continue to fuel the discoverability of hyperlocal businesses and products, make e-commerce accessible to value conscious customers and innovate to become the preferred e-commerce destination for the next billion users in the country. Meesho also aims to reach 100 million monthly transacting users by December 2022 and increase its roster to over 50 million products.

About Meesho

Meesho is India’s fastest growing internet commerce platform. With a vision to enable 100 million small businesses, including individual entrepreneurs, to succeed online, Meesho is democratizing internet commerce and bringing a range of products and new customers online. The Meesho marketplace provides small businesses, which includes SMBs, MSMEs and individual entrepreneurs, access to millions of customers, selection from over 700+ categories, pan-India logistics, payment services and customer support capabilities to efficiently run their businesses on the Meesho ecosystem.

About Cashfree Payments

Cashfree Payments is a leading payment and API banking solutions company. It provides full-stack payments solutions enabling businesses in India to collect payments and make payouts via all available methods with simple integration. Cashfree Payments’ offerings include an advanced and easy way to integrate payment gateways, a split payment solution for marketplaces, bank account verification API and Auto Collect -- a virtual account solution to match inbound payments to customers.

Founded by IIIT Hyderabad alumnus Akash Sinha and IIT Kharagpur graduate Reeju Datta, www.cashfree.com is among the leading payment service providers in India processing transactions worth USD 20 Billion annually. It has leveraged technology to lead payment disbursals in India with more than 50% market share among payment processors. Cashfree Payments enables more than 1,00,000 businesses with payment collections, vendor payouts, wage payouts, bulk refunds, expense reimbursements, loyalty and rewards. Apart from India, Cashfree Payments products are used in eight other countries including the USA, Canada and UAE. Cashfree Payments is backed by Silicon Valley investor Y Combinator, Apis Partners, State Bank of India (SBI) and was incubated by PayPal.

Cashfree Payments Ties-Up With SonyLIV, for Shark Tank India

Cashfree Payments is payments partner for iconic start-up funding reality show

Leading payments and API banking solutions company, Cashfree Payments (Cashfree) today announced its partnership with SonyLIV as the payments partner for the first edition of "Shark Tank India” show.

Shark Tank is a 20-year-old international TV show that has reinvigorated start-ups across 40 countries and is touted as the world’s number one business reality show. The one-hour show features start-up founders making pitches to judges, who are also prospective investors, for raising funds.

The show’s importance in the country cannot be emphasized as India has 38,815 active start-ups as of date. Of these, 1,050 start-ups were launched in 2020. In the same year, start-ups raised $11.5 billion. By 2021-end, start-ups are projected to raise another $16-20 billion. And, all of this has happened and is set to happen, despite the pandemic. Cashfree Payments finds value in the collaboration, as its operations towards enabling businesses digitize and grow by providing distinctive payments solutions resonate well with the format of Shark Tank. Similarly, the show presents golden opportunities to Indian startups and entrepreneurs to showcase their business models.

Akash Sinha, Co-Founder and CEO, Cashfree Payments said, "We are glad to partner with SonyLIV for the Shark Tank India show as it allows us to associate with a platform that recognizes and supports young entrepreneurs. This is in line with Cashfree’s philosophy of fostering innovation in the Indian business ecosystem and contributing to the Make in India initiative.”

“Cashfree values the passion of entrepreneurs towards their businesses and such examples of extraordinary spirit and aspirations. In fact, we believe that this association will benefit the country’s overall start-up ecosystem – celebrating entrepreneurship and creating a more favorable environment for start-ups to bloom,” he added.

Akash Sinha, CEO and Co-Founder, Cashfree Payments

Ranjana Mangla, Sr. Vice President & Head of Ad Revenue - SonyLIV at Sony Pictures Networks India - Digital Business said, “It gives us immense pleasure to partner with Cashfree Payments for our first edition of Shark Tank in India. Our unique and valuable collaboration with Cashfree is sure to enhance the dynamic entrepreneurial ecosystem in the country. Being the payment partner for this edition of Shark Tank, we are happy to open that gateway for innovative minds to foster in synergy with Cashfree.”

With over 50% market share, Cashfree Payments today leads the way in bulk disbursals in India with Cashfree Payouts. Recently, India’s largest lender, SBI invested in Cashfree, underscoring the latter’s role in building a robust payments ecosystem.

Cashfree Payments works closely with all leading banks to build the core payments and banking infrastructure that powers the company’s products and is also integrated with major platforms such as Shopify, Wix, Paypal, Amazon Pay, Paytm and Google Pay. Apart from India, Cashfree products are used in eight other countries including the US, Canada and the UAE.

Shark Tank India is going to premiere on SonyLIV on Dec 20th.

About Cashfree Payments

Cashfree Payments is a leading payment and API banking solutions company. It provides full-stack payments solutions enabling businesses in India to collect payments and make payouts via all available methods with simple integration. Cashfree Payments’ offerings include an advanced and easy way to integrate payment gateway, a split payment solution for marketplaces, bank account verification API and Auto Collect -- a virtual account solution to match inbound payments to customers. Founded by IIIT Hyderabad alumnus Akash Sinha and IIT Kharagpur graduate Reeju Datta, www.cashfree.com is among the leading payment service providers in India processing transactions worth USD 20 Billion annually. It has leveraged technology to lead payment disbursals in India with more than 50% market share among payment processors. Cashfree Payments enables more than 1,00,000 businesses with payment collections, vendor payouts, wage payouts, bulk refunds, expense reimbursements, loyalty and rewards. Apart from India, Cashfree Payments products are used in eight other countries including the USA, Canada and UAE. Cashfree Payments is backed by Silicon Valley investor Y Combinator, Apis Partners, State Bank of India (SBI) and was incubated by PayPal.

Cashfree strengthens API Banking Platform ‘Payouts' by Increasing Partnerships with Leading Banks

Cashfree, India's leading business payments platform, has announced partnerships with HDFC Bank, Kotak Bank and IndusInd Bank to strengthen Payouts, its bulk disbursal platform. Payouts, an API based banking solution, is a simple and automated way to send money in bulk to any company's bank account in India, instantly in real-time, 24x7 and even during bank holidays. Businesses can send money to other bank accounts, cards, Amazon Pay, Paytm and UPI IDs.

Akash Sinha, Co-Founder and CEO of Cashfree said, “Through our strategic partnerships with India leading banks, we continue to strengthen our platform and enable businesses to manage and automate bulk payments. By fortifying our network of banks, Cashfree's disbursals in the form of refunds, vendor payments and more will become faster and easier than ever.
Digital payments are witnessing tremendous growth in the country. In the last five years, we have witnessed the growth of unique internet businesses that are growing rapidly and changing the lives of their consumers. In such a scenario, it is imperative for money to move faster than ever before. Cashfree's Payouts is a true enabler of this movement, allowing businesses to make bulk payments instantly 24x7, even on bank holidays. The strong partnerships that we have forged with India's leading banks on our platform allows our merchant partners to have a higher success rate for online transactions, enabling them to focus on growing their business."

Payouts by Cashfree is used by thousands of businesses such as Delhivery, Xiaomi, Club Factory, and Shell, for use cases like vendor payouts, wage payouts, bulk refunds, expense reimbursements, loyalty & rewards. More than 20 million bank accounts have received a payout through Cashfree.

Benefits of Payouts:

Instant beneficiary addition and money transfer 24x7, even on bank holidays: Businesses can instantly add beneficiaries and make bulk transfers through Cashfree. Money can be sent instantly, 24x7, even on bank holidays.

Robust APIs for automated Payouts: Cashfree's API can support millions of daily transactions to handle the scale of business. A user can simply use the API or opt to use the Payouts' simple excel file upload option via Cashfree's dashboard and make bulk payments.

Pay salaries, vendor payments and refunds directly from your internal product or ERP:

Users do not have to juggle between their ERP and banking applications to make payments. Bank current account holders can simply integrate Cashfree's Payouts API with their product or internal ERP and trigger the payments from their linked current account. Businesses with a maker-checker workflow can continue to authorize their payments in the Bank's Corporate Internet Banking portal.

Automated reconciliation of failed transfers:

Cashfree's intelligent algorithms can analyse a users' bank statement to reveal payment failure and automatically reconcile the same.

Bank Account Verification: Cashfree helps identify if the name of the account holder and if the bank account number is correct.

About Cashfree

Cashfree is a payments and banking technology company that enables businesses in India to collect and send money around the clock. Founded by IIIT Hyderabad alumnus Akash Sinha and IIT Kharagpur graduate Reeju Datta, Cashfree enables more than 50,000 businesses with payments collections, vendor payouts, wage payouts, bulk refunds, expense reimbursements, loyalty and rewards. Incubated by payments pioneer Paypal, Cashfree is backed by Smilegate and Y Combinator.

Payment Startup launches Pre-Authorization on Debit, Credit Cards for Online Merchants

Bengaluru-based payments startup, Cashfree has launched Pre-authorization on Debit and Credit cards for its 15,000 online merchants. This is the first time any payment gateway in India is offering such a service.

Pre-authorization or card authorization is a facility that payment gateways offer to online merchants to block funds when a customer places an order. If the order is modified or cancelled within a specific time, the merchant can mark the transaction void and the amount goes back to the consumer's original payment source. In this case, the merchant is not charged anything for the transaction. Without Pre-authorization, refunding a cancelled transaction would require 2-15 days of processing time from banks and card companies. Additionally, without Pre-auth, the merchant will need to pay the transaction charge (TDR) even for the cancelled transaction.

Pre-authorization of card is a popular feature in developed nations. Hotel bookings and online merchants use Pre-authorization as a way to confirm a booking. Pre-auth through Cashfree is live on travel app ixigo.com for train ticket booking. It is launching on a host of other apps as well.

Talking about the launch, Akash Sinha, CEO & Co-founder of Cashfree, said, "Pre-auth is an innovative feature for online merchants in India. This is like an escrow for transactions that have a chance of failing or where the final amount might change - say a cab ride. With Zero charges and zero refund time, it is a win-win feature for both merchant and consumer. We will see a versatile set of e-commerce companies adopting it in the near future and some interesting use cases built on top of it."

Cashfree is India's leading payment gateway. Cashfree is used by more than 15,000 businesses for vendor payouts, wage payouts, bulk refunds, expense reimbursements, loyalty, and rewards. It counts Xiaomi, Tencent, Zomato, Cred, Club Factory, ExxonMobil, Google-backed Dunzo, donation platforms like Ketto and Milaap amongst its customers. Cashfree works closely with all leading banks like ICICI, HDFC, Kotak and Yes Bank to build the core payments and banking infrastructure that powers Cashfree products. Cashfree recently raised its Series A of $5.5 million from Korean investor Smilegate with participation from existing investor Y Combinator.