PayU to acquire controlling stake in PaySense

PayU on Friday said it will acquire a controlling stake in PaySense and all its assets at a valuation of USD 185 million (about Rs 1,300 crore).

"PayU's consumer lending business LazyPay and PaySense will merge their business operations to build a full-stack digital lending platform in India. This planned merger is aligned with PayU's long term vision of orchestrating a fintech ecosystem in India by partnering with the right companies and offering multiple financial services," a statement said.

PayU will also inject up to USD 200 million (about Rs 1,400 crore) in the new enterprise in the form of equity capital, it said.

It added that USD 65 million of the total amount will be immediately invested, while the balance corpus will be infused in the next 24 months to grow the loan book.

Prashanth Ranganathan (currently PaySense CEO) will lead PayU's credit business in India as the CEO of the new enterprise. He will continue to retain a stake in the merged enterprise, while all the other investors and shareholders will exit.

PaySense's management team will become part of PayU's credit team.

PayU's understanding of consumer backgrounds and insights into purchase behaviour and affluence levels from its payment gateway business, coupled with LazyPay's experience in driving customer acquisition and engagement and PaySense's analytics, tech and risk management capabilities will enable the combined entity to serve more of the new-to-credit Indian population, the statement said.

PayU's unified digital credit platform will enable third parties such as banks, NBFCs and alternate lenders to co-lend and grow assets.

"This merger is the next step in our journey as we accelerate our vision for credit in India. We're delighted to welcome Prashanth and his experienced team as we integrate this fast-growing business and build a full-stack digital lending platform..." PayU Global Head of Credit Siddhartha Jajodia said.

In a separate statement, Nexus Venture Partners said it was the sole initial institutional investor in Paysense.

Nexus had first partnered Prashanth Ranganathan and Sayali Karanjkar at concept stage of the company in 2015, and further participated in all subsequent rounds of the company, it added.