​PhonePe acquires freelance entrepreneur network GigIndia to strengthen enterprise offerings

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Digital payments and financial services player PhonePe said on March 21 that it has acquired Pune-based GigIndia which is a network for freelance micro-entrepreneurs.

Through the acquisition, PhonePe will integrate with itself the 1.5 million entrepreneurs, and over 100 enterprises as customers, besides the company’s employees. PhonePe will leverage GigIndia’s network of freelance microentrepreneurs to help corporates and enterprises acquire more customers and scale up their distribution channels.

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Payments and financial services are PhonePe’s core offerings with the Walmart-owned player enjoying a 47 percent share in monthly Unified Payments Interface (UPI) volumes. UPI serves as the platform’s key customer acquisition point, to further cross sell revenue generating products to them including mutual funds, gold, insurance as well as facilitating bill payments.

The acquisition of GigIndia however is a deviation from PhonePe’s core offerings and will allow the company to leverage GigIndia’s network of freelance microentrepreneurs to help corporates and enterprises acquire more customers and scale up their distribution channels.

This acquisition will also strengthen PhonePe’s offerings and value proposition to its enterprise partners and result in the creation of millions of opportunities for individual freelance micro-entrepreneurs in India, the company said in a statement. According to reports, India’s freelance community is projected to grow to $20-30 billion by 2025.

Speaking on the acquisition Vivek Lohcheb, Head of Offline Business at PhonePe said, “GigIndia has already served many businesses, with its pool of high-quality, skilled freelance micro-entrepreneurs. We are looking forward to working closely with them.”​

Founded in 2017 by Sahil Sharma and Aditya Shirole, GigIndia’s customer base includes companies like Amazon, Paytm, Tata Group, Reliance Industries, Swiggy, PayU, among others. The company’s list of investors and advisors include former TCS CEO S Ramadorai, Beyond Next Ventures CEO and Founding Partner Tsuyoshi Ito, Incubate Fund India Founder Nao Murakami, former Tech Mahindra CEO Kiran Deshpande.

“PhonePe is a leader in the digital payments space, and we are delighted to be joining forces with them. GigIndia has been a trusted partner for fast-growing enterprises across India and in PhonePe we have found a like-minded partner, who supports our vision,” said GigIndia founder and CEO Sahil Sharma.

PhonePe was founded in 2015 by former Flipkart executives Sameer Nigam, Rahul Chari and Burzin Engineer, the company has over 335 million registered users and is accepted at over 22 million merchant outlets.