In an all-money deal, digital payments startup Razorpay has acquired Gurugram-based fraud analytics startup Thirdwatch. Razorpay did not reveal the exact details of the arrangement but rather said it is utilising the recently- raised funds to help finance the deal.
Thirdwatch, an early stage startup with around 10 employees will act as a subsidiary of Razorpay, working out of Bengaluru.
The acquisition has come right after Razorpay raised 75 million USD in C funding round from Ribbit Capital and Sequoia Capital India in June.
Launched in 2014 by Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar, Razorpay is a fast-rising fintech player which provides integrated payment services through clean, developer-friendly APIs, and smooth integration with mobile wallets, credit and debit cards and internet banking. Its clients include IRCTC, Airtel, BookMyShow, Zomato, Swiggy, Yatra and Zerodha, along with thousands of other merchant users.
The acquisition will add the much-needed capabilities of AI, machine learning and big data to enhance Razorpay’s payment experience as wells as prevent fraudulent transactions.
Thirdwatch’s AI powered platform Mitra flags suspicious and risky transactions by investigating more than 200 parameters in real time. This helps online businesses reduce fraudulent transactions by more than 80 percent, the startup claims. Mitra deploys small scale data models, global signals and an outfit of AI algorithms to precisely profile fraudulent behaviour.
According to Harshil Mathur, CEO of Razorpay, the Indian online business industry is estimated to reach $150 billion by 2022 with around 4-5% of transactions being fraudulent, and Indian e-com players may lose over $5 billion in fraud cases by 2020 given fraud detection and prevention tools are not put in place.
