Mobile PoS solutions provider Mswipe raises funding from Matrix Partners, Axis Bank and DSG Consumer Partners

Mumbai-based mobile POS services provider Mswipe Technologies Pvt Ltd has announced that it has raised Series B round of funding, led by existing investor Matrix Partners, with participation from Axis Bank and DSG Consumer Partners. The funding amount has not been disclosed.

Techcircle.in had first reported that Mswipe has raised a fresh round from existing investors.

The capital will be used to expand its merchant aggregator business and to acquire new customers, according to Mswipe founder and managing director Manish Patel.

"We believe there is a large market opportunity with small merchants craving cost-effective mobile payment terminals and adopting front-end PoS technology. We will provide affordable mobile PoS solutions directly to merchants in 200 Indian cities as well as work with partners like insurance agents, home delivery etc," Patel said.

Mswipe was set up in March 2011 by Patel, who holds a degree in medicine from Mumbai University. Prior to starting Mswipe, he co-founded Milestone Merchandise, an alcohol-beverages distribution company.

It essentially targets SMBs with its PoS solutions. It offers a mobile phone-based PoS service for small merchants that enables plastic card payments via mobile phone. It also provides a card reader that can be attached to any mobile phone (be it smartphone or feature phone) via a 3.5mm headphone jack. Once attached, the card reader converts the mobile phone into a card acceptance device.

Last December, Mswipe launched an EMV (Europay, MasterCard and Visa)-compliant mobile PoS solution, called Wisepad. It is a Bluetooth-enabled device that does not require any physical connection to the phone. Using Wisepad, merchants can accept credit and debit cards with the same security & speed as conventional PoS terminals at a very affordable price point and competitive card interchange fees, claims the company. Mswipe will partner with leading banks to deploy these terminals at small and mid-sized merchants across the country.

The firm claims that it has partnered with more than 6,000 merchants across India and 1,000 merchants in Sri Lanka. It currently employs over 100 people.

In January last year, Mswipe had secured Series A funding, led by Matrix Partners. Axis Bank had also participated in this round.

Prior to that it raised an angel round from a group of investors, including Deepak Shahdadpuri, founder and MD, Beacon India Private Equity Fund, and Praveen Chakravarty, former head of investment banking at Anand Rathi, in 2012.

"Mswipe has made significant progress since our seed investment in becoming the category defining mobile PoS solutions company.  We continue to believe there is a large market opportunity in creating a cost-effective POS infrastructure," said Rishi Navani, managing director, Matrix India.

DSG Consumer Partners is an investment firm which mainly invests in consumer businesses. It primarily takes minority stake in unlisted companies, but also considers control deals with the right management team. Its other investments include Sula Wines, Saffronart, Cleartrip, Bakers Circle, Mocha, Salt Water Café and Smoke House Restaurants.

Mobile payments space has been attracting lot of investor interest lately.

Last week, Delhi-based Cobboc Pvt Ltd, which offers a mobile-based payments app Eashmart, raised an undisclosed amount in funding from IIM-A's tech incubator CIIE (Centre for Innovation, Incubation & Entrepreneurship) and two unnamed angel investors.

Also, Bangalore-based mobile payment solutions provider iKaaz raised an undisclosed amount in seed round of funding led by Ananda Kallugadde, managing director of NeoBytes Software Solutions.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)