Mumbai-Based Payments Startup PayMate Gets International Visa For 92 Countries

Mumbai-headquartered B2B digital payments provider PayMate has partnered with global payments enabler Visa to expand its presence to 92 countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEMEA) region.

The company has expanded its two-year-old collaboration with Visa taking PayMate’s proprietary payment platform to the enterprises and small and medium businesses of the CEMEA region.

Founded in 2006 by Ajay Adiseshann and Probir Roy, PayMate provides digital payments solutions for enterprises and SMEs. The platform is built to help its business customers automate and manage vendor payments (Payables), customer payments (Receivables) and invoicing in an attempt to improve process efficiency and providing greater transparency of cash flows.

Its banking partners include the State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, and Axis Bank. The company claims to have enabled more than $325 Mn in credit to SME’s for their working capital.

Ajay Adiseshann, founder and CEO, PayMate said, “There is an ever-increasing demand for automation and digitization of the entire procurement to payment cycle to help save cost, time and effort. We are thrilled to expand outside India with Visa and offer our platform to businesses operating in CEMEA region.”

The company has raised more than $15.5 Mn in funding from its investors which include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) and Sherpalo Ventures along with Mayfield Fund and Lightbox Ventures.

Rakesh Khanna, vice president, Head of Visa Business Solutions, CEMEA Visa said, “Our initial foray with PayMate in India resulted in a large number of enterprises and SMBs making payments using Visa commercial cards across industry verticals, contributing to significant B2B payment volume growth in the country.”

The Inc42 DataLabs’ Indian Tech Startup Funding Report 2018 shows that the fintech startups gained $1.4 Bn in funding last year, making it one of the top-funded sectors in 2018.

In the fintech space of B2B digital payments, PayMate competes players such as Razorpay, Innoviti, CCAvenue and targets the market of SMEs and enterprises. The B2B market records annual transaction values of more than $1 Tn, along with high anticipated rates of growth over the next five years.

PayMate’s decision to expand to CEMEA region as its first international foray further highlights the promising growth of the digital payments in the region. According to the World Payments Report 2018, the global digital payments volumes grew by 10% reaching $482.6 Bn. The growth was seen mostly in the emerging CEMEA region.