Digital payments company PhonePe on Monday announced that it has acquired a freelance platform for micro-entrepreneurs GigIndia. Phonepe wasn’t disclosed the deal amount.
According to the company, it would leverage GigIndia’s network of 1.5 million freelancers to help corporates and enterprises acquire more customers and scale up their distribution channels. GigIndia currently has more than 100 enterprises as customers.
Gig work or freelancing is essentially referred to as on-demand work delivery with negligible or no formal contracting.
PhonePe said it will also leverage GigIndia’s network of freelance micro-entrepreneurs to help corporates and enterprises acquire more customers and scale up their distribution channels.
The acquisition will also strengthen PhonePe’s offerings and value proposition to its corporate and enterprise partners. According to some estimates, India’s freelance community space is projected to grow to $20-30 billion by 2025.
“We are excited to welcome GigIndia’s team to PhonePe and leverage their domain expertise to offer value-added services to our enterprise partners, helping them scale, expand and grow their businesses,” said Vivek Lohcheb, Head of Offline Business at PhonePe.
“Sahil Sharma, CEO at GigIndia, said PhonePe is a leader in the digital payments space and added “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,” he added.
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.
PhonePe has over 365 million registered users on its platform and is accepted at over 27 million merchant outlets across India.
The startup’s offline transactions showed a 200 percent growth over the last year, it said recently. It processed over a billion peer-to-merchant transactions in the last month of 2021.
About GigIndia
GigIndia, a Pune-based company, was founded in 2017 by engineering students Sahil Sharma and Aditya Shirole. The B2B marketplace for on-demand work completion has recorded a 3X growth in revenue since the beginning of the pandemic.
GigIndia’s customer base includes companies like Amazon, Paytm, Tata Group, Reliance Industries, Swiggy, PayU, among others.
GigIndia has worked with over 100 enterprise customers. Its app had over a million installs on the Google Play Store. It has a registered workforce of over one million workers across 200 cities in India.
The company’s list of investors and advisors includes former TCS CEO S Ramadorai, Beyond Next Ventures CEO. The Founding Partner Tsuyoshi Ito, Incubate Fund India Founder Nao Murakami, former Tech Mahindra CEO Kiran Deshpande.
