E-payments processor FortunePay raised funding from Kae Capital, Bessemer; To start operations by year-end

FortunePay, a payments processor offering end-to-end e-payment services and platforms to banks and merchants, has raised an undisclosed amount from Kae Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners in May this year. As part of the deal, Sasha Mirchandani, MD and founder of Kae Capital, joined the board of the company.

While the company is yet to start deploying its services (in the payments business, certification from multiple entities is required before the business can be started), it will probably start doing so before the end of this year. And that makes the seed investment all the more interesting as most of the times, a company has to validate its business model and gain considerable traction before receiving investor interest.

The startup, run by Bangalore-based Fortune Payment Solutions India Pvt Ltd, claims that its Paavati platform will enable banks and service providers to acquire new customers cost effectively besides offering new products/services and servicing customers.

Leveraging its Paavati platform, FortunePay plans to cater to several industries including banking & financial services (via a cloud-based payment infrastructure), e-commerce (via Paavati Gateway, the company's internet payment gateway) and retail. Its offerings include Paavati Platform (for acquiring & process e-payments), Paavati Gateway (for internet/e-commerce payments), Paavati Terminal (for branchless banking in urban areas) and Paavati Plus (for ensuring financial inclusion). Its products are available as white-label offerings so as to reduce clients' time-to-market. The company also provides interfaces to integrate its platform with clients' business systems in a bid to improve their efficiency and service levels.

FortunePay has been set up by Manju S Murthy (CEO) and Shashidhar P (head of operations). Although the company was developing its infrastructure since September 2010, it officially came into existence in June 2011. The firm will soon open an office in Mumbai.

Murthy's previous venture was WDC Solutions where he was CEO and co-founder, but he exited in 2007. Post that initiative, he had worked as a payments consultant in the US and also in India. He holds an MS from University of Texas at Austin and an MBA degree from University of Houston, Bauer College of Business. Prior to starting FortunePay, Shashidhar was AVP (engineering) at A Little World Pvt Ltd and also worked as the CTO at WDC Solutions. He holds a BE degree in Computer Science.

(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)