Razorpay, a Bengaluru-based online payments solution provider, has acquired Thirdwatch, an artificial intelligence driven company, for an undisclosed amount.
The company said that the acquisition will surge the working of Razorpay in AI (artificial intelligence) and big data as its looks to improve payment experience and avoid fraudulent transactions.
“This acquisition is a perfect fit. Our war is against cash, hence we want to address all problems surrounding it through new integrated data science technologies. Fraud has been the albatross around ecommerce companies’ necks for the longest time and we believe through this acquisition we will empower businesses across industries to digitally transform and disrupt, by improving their response and redressal mechanisms of combating fraud. Together, I believe we can help reduce frauds by 30-40 percent by next year,” Harshil Mathur, CEO and co-founder of Razorpay, said.
Co-founded by Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar in 2013, RazorPay has recently introduced four new products in the Indian market to boost its revenues. These products lies in the areas of recurring payments, automation of bank transfers like NEFT, and invoice management.
Whereas, Thirdwatch, founded by Shashank Agarwal in 2016, is empowering the Indian e-commerce space with the introduction of an AI driven fraud prevention platform Mitra.
The real-time AI platform uses big data technology, data science and design to help online sellers to increase their bottom-line by expanding their geographical reach without worrying about the Return-to-Origin (RTO) losses.
“We’ve always believed in developing technologies that will not just limit e-commerce transactions to be secure and seamless but also make the systems intelligent with real-time insights through AI. A similar commitment was echoed by the Razorpay team and that’s what impressed us and brought us together,” Shashank Agarwal, founder of Thirdwatch, said.
Furthermore, over the last four years, Razorpay has been actively involved in solving problems towards strengthening the fintech and banking ecosystem.
Estimates suggest that by FY’22, the Indian e-commerce industry is expected to reach $150 billion. With around 4-5 per cent transactions being fraudulent, Indian ecommerce players will lose over $5 billion to fraudulent transactions by 2020.
Some of the significant platforms under the similar roof include Instamojo, JustPay, PayUmoney, Just Pay, Fino, Tapzo, and many more.