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Bangalore-based mobile payments startup Ezetap Mobile Solutions has raised about $23.53 Mn (INR 150 Cr.) in a fresh round of funding led by Social+Capital, Helion Advisors.
Berggruen Holdings alongwith Horizons Ventures, the private investment arm for Li Ka-Shing, and the Capricorn Investment Group also participated in this round of funding.
With this round of funding, Social+Capital founder Chamath Palihapitiya will become Chairman of Board, this is first time the former Facebook executive has taken on this role with a portfolio company outside the United States.
The startup is activating over 500 new small retail merchants per week will use some of its funds to increase that by 5 times in the next few months and reach to over 2 lakh merchants and agents across India in the next 12 months.
Founded in 2011 by Abhijit Bose, Bhaktha Keshavachar and Sanjay Swamy, Ezetap is a mobile-based payments service provider. The Ezetap service is PCI-DSS compliant, has been certified by multiple, leading financial institutions.
The Ezetap solution helps merchant’s mobile device turn into an intelligent point of sale that is able to read any type of card and complete any type of financial transaction.
The startup’s solution also consists of a configurable mobile application, a secure and lightweight card reader, and a flexible platform that offers Ezetap to provide customized value-added services and integrate to a merchant’s existing systems.
The startup is deploying more than 60,000 new points of sale across India within 30 months. As per the company, it processes transactions worth over $1 Mn per day and has a customer base ranging from the most well known enterprises to thousands of small retail businesses.
Chamath Palihapitiya, Founder & Managing Partner, Social+Capital, said, “India is uniquely positioned to build an entirely new financial services ecosystem thanks to advancements like UID. Moreover, it’s clear to us that this revolution will be mobile first – from mPOS to mobile wallets, and that Ezetap is the only company who can seamlessly and agnostically support this fast changing landscape.”
The company has partnerships with banks such as Citibank, HDFC Bank, and American Express, who is also an investor in the company.
Recently, State Bank of India chose Ezetap to be its mPOS partner in order to help scale electronic payments and banking services in every part of the country.
Previously, Ezetap had raised $8 Mn in Series B funding led by Helion Advisors along with existing investors Chamath Palihapitiya’s The Social+Capital Partnership and Berggruen Holdings. While in Series A round it had raised $3.5 Mn in November 2012.
A few other players in this domain includes Mosambee, MobiSwipe, Mswipe and Mahindra Comviva’s payPLUS.
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