Amazon has agreed to acquire Indian buy-now, pay-late-startup Axio, deepening its push into financial services in one of its fastest-growing markets.
The e-commerce group, which has held an equity stake in Axio for six years, signed the takeover deal in December after completing due diligence on the Indian startup he said in a blog post.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but two people familiar with the matter told TechCrunch that the size of the deal is more than $150 million. The transaction requires approval from India’s central bank.
The Bengaluru-based startup, formerly known as Capital Float, has so far raised $135 million from investors including Peak XV Partners, Ribbit Capital and Elevation Capital over the years.
Axio specializes in providing credit to self-employed individuals and households at the point of sale on major e-commerce platforms including Amazon and MakeMyTrip. It claims to serve more than 10 million customers and that its loan portfolio is worth more than $260 million.
Axio and other startups like it in India operate in a market where access to traditional credit remains limited — the country has low credit card penetration and conventional banks often find small-ticket loans unprofitable.
The startup says it is attempting to address this gap with its vetted lending platform that can quickly assess customers’ creditworthiness, helping it make credit decisions “within two clicks and five seconds.”
But like many other startups in the category, Axio has also struggled to maintain its growth. Goldman Sachs-backed ZestMoney, which operated in a similar space and was once valued at $450 million, also struggled and was eventually bought by financial services firm DMI Group in a fire sale last year.
The startup competes with Bajaj Finance, the Indian financial services giant that dominates the market.
Axio is the second startup Amazon has acquired in India in the past year — it bought video-on-demand streaming service MX Player in June. The tech giant has deployed more than $10 billion in the country so far.
