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Sweet and sour

Paytm Lemonade

Over $80 million in combined funding and two years wasn't enough for Little Internet and Nearbuy, two of India's largest hyperlocal deals companies. Ultimately Paytm had to engineer a face-saving, albeit clever, acquisition. What's next?

12/12/17

Arundhati Ramanathan

Paytm is trying to turn a bad investment into a better one by acquiring Nearbuy and merging it with Little  

Considering the vasts sums of money it raised, Little was not able to scale as much as Nearbuy

Couponing startups have an inherent problem. Driven by deep discounts, they end up attracting bargain-hunting customers for merchants

This deal can effectively spell the end for standalone couponing startups

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Bad startup investments are par for the course. There’s even a commonly used term for them: lemons. Thus the VC adage, “lemons ripen faster”. Meaning, bad investments tend to become apparent faster than good ones. Last week, Paytm*, the $7 billion payments and e-commerce giant, figured out a way to get rid of a particularly…

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