Paytm looking to acquire deal discovery startups Little and Nearbuy

Paytm is in talks to acquire not one but two deal discovery startups namely Little and Nearbuy, according to various media reports.

Citing people in the know of the things, the reports say that Paytm has already had early-stage discussions with both the parties and the deals are expected to happen at distress prices. If the talks go through smoothly, the acquisitions should help Paytm boost its presence in the hyperlocal space.

Founded in 2015 by Manish Chopra and Satish Mani, Little is a consumer lifestyle deals platform in the growing online to offline market. In July 2015, Paytm and its early backer venture capital firm SAIF Partners became major investors in Little when they put $50 million in the firm.

Gurgaon-headquartered Nearbuy, that broke away from its parent Groupon too has struggled to expand has been on a lookout for fresh equity for quite some time.

Paytm is on an aggressive expansion mode. After securing massive $1.4 billion from Japan’s SoftBank, the startup has been foraying into areas like travel booking, movie-ticketing and others that align with its core competence of payments.

Recently, it acquired a majority stake in online ticketing and events platform Insider.in, which is backed by event management company Only Much Louder (OML), for a little over Rs 35 crore.