Digital payments and financial services company PhonePe said on July 29 that it had completed its long-term acquisition of mobile platform OSLabs following a settlement with its majority shareholder, Affle Global Pte Ltd.

PhonePe acquired all of Affle Global’s shares at a premium as part of the deal. However, it did not disclose the final valuation of the deal.

100 Indus OS employees, including founders Akash Dongre, Rakesh Deshmukh and Sudhir Bangarambandi, will become part of PhonePe, which now owns 100% of the company following the all-cash deal.

The deal comes after PhonePe entered into a long legal battle with Indus OS shareholders Affle and Ventureast Fund over Indus OS valuation. Walmart-owned PhonePe will acquire Indus OS in May 2021 at a valuation of $60 million.

However, Affle, the largest shareholder of Indus OS, opposed the deal and filed an injunction against PhonePe at the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC), saying it had a right of first refusal (RoRF). According to Affle, Indus OS has a true valuation of $90 million and is reluctant to sell its majority stake at a lower valuation. PhonePe is also suing Affle and Ventureast at SIAC.

On April 13, PhonePe, Affle and Ventureast Fund revealed that the three parties had decided to opt for an out-of-court settlement to complete the transaction.

Founded in 2007, Indus OS has raised around $20 million from Samsung Ventures, Omidyar Network and Snapdeal founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, among others.

After the transaction is completed, PhonePe can build a horizontal local app store.

PhonePe, a leader in Unified Payments Interface (UPI), plans to have Indus OS work with PhonePe’s Switch, a service that enables multiple apps such as Ola, redBus, Goibibo, Myntra, Delhi Metro and Grofers on a single platform.

PhonePe’s interest in Indus OS comes from distributing games, as Indus OS has over 100 million users and over 400,000 apps on its app marketplace called App Bazaar. Indus OS has partnered with 12 mobile brands in India and powers Samsung’s default app store, the Galaxy Store.

App Bazaar for Indus OS has over 4 lakh apps available in 12 Indian languages, and the platform has seen over 1 billion app installs since 2019. PhonePe itself runs its own “super app” platform, Switch, which provides users with access to popular consumer internet apps on its platform.