Bangalore based mobile point of sale (PoS) payments startup Ezetap has raised $8 million investment in Series B funding led by Helion Advisors with participation from existing investors Chamath Palihapitiya’s The Social+Capital Partnership and Berggruen Holdings.
The company plans to use the investment raised for further growth in Asia and Africa and hopes to deploy 100,000 PoS devices in the next year. It has currently deployed 12,000 PoS devices across South East Asia and Africa.
Incubated by early stage investment fund AngelPrime, Ezetap had earlier raised $3.5 million from The Social+Capital Partnership, Peter Thiel, Nicolas Berggruen & David Sacks and the company has raised a total $11.5 million investment until now.
The company is one among several Square-like mobile PoS solution providers in India. The solution comprises a card reader, mobile app and a platform that allows Ezetap to provide customized value-added services and integrate with a merchant’s existing systems.
Through this solution, merchants can convert their mobile phones into point of sale terminals by plugging in an Ezetap card reader. It says the card reader can connect to a mobile device via Bluetooth, USB, or Audio and supports feature phones, smartphones and tablets.
Last July, Ezetap had launched a $50 magnetic stripe and chip card-based card reader with integrated pinpad and support for debit cards.
It had also partnered with Citibank to launch a mobile payment solution for merchants targeting credit and debit card holders in India in January 2013 and partnered Kenya’s largest bank Equity Bank and MasterCard to expand operations to Kenya in March 2013.
It counts companies like Myntra, BookMyShow, Olacabs, redBus, BigBasket and Reliance Mutual Fund as its customers.
Investments in mPoS Companies
Earlier this month, mobile PoS payment company Mswipe had raised an undisclosed amount in Series B funding from Matrix Partners, Axis Bank and DSG Consumer Partners and also launched a new PoS device called the Wisepad recently.
Yesterday, India’s Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs had also approved Japanese electronics conglomerate Hitachi‘s $250 million acquisition of the ATM and Point-of-sale solutions company Prizm Payments Services.
Last month, mobile payments solution provider iKaaz had raised seed funding from a group of investors while mobile POS payment system Eashmart had secured angel funding from IIM Ahmedabad’s incubator CIIE and two unnamed angel investors.
Other players include One97 Mobility fund backed MobiSwipe and Paymate among others. Telco MTS had launched its own mobile point of sale device MTS mPOS in June 2012, while Mahindra Comviva had launched its mPOS solution payPLUS in June this year and Yes Bank had introduced its mobile PoS solution in December 2012.
