Mobile payments service provider Ezetap secures funding from American Express

Bangalore-based mobile payments service provider Ezetap Mobile Solutions Pvt Ltd has raised an undisclosed amount in funding from American Express. Ezetap plans to use the capital raised from the latest round to accelerate its global growth across Asia and Africa.

"This investment will allow us to turn on additional value added services such as loyalty and rewards that will delight users and change the entire payment experience for end consumers," Ezetap co-founder and CEO Abhijit Bose said.

This funding comes just a month after the Bangalore-based company bagged $8 million in Series B round of funding led by Helion Venture Partners, with participation from existing investors Social+Capital Partnership and New York-based Berggruen Holdings. The previous round took the company's total capital raised so far to $12 million.

Ezetap was founded in 2011 by Abhijit Bose (CEO), Bhakta Keshavachar (CTO). The Ezetap solution turns any merchant's mobile device into an intelligent point of sale that is able to read all cards and complete a full spectrum of financial transactions, including credit card sale, real-time bill payment and ATM cash withdrawals or deposits.

This solution comprises a secure and lightweight card reader, a configurable mobile app and a flexible platform that allows Ezetap to provide customised value-added services and integrate to a merchant's existing systems. The Ezetap Card Reader can connect to a mobile device via Bluetooth, USB or audio jacks.

Last year, the firm launched a mobile POS device priced at $50. Ezetap claims to have deployed over 12,000 mPOS devices across Southeast Asia and Africa, and expects the number to cross 100,000 in 12 months. The firm currently serves leading companies in e-commerce, bill payment & collections, insurance, FMCG, restaurants & hospitality, retail, taxi services and organisations focused on financial inclusion.

In November 2012, the company had raised $3.5 million in Series A funding from Social+Capital Partnership and a group of individuals, including Peter Thiel (co-founder of PayPal and one of the Facebook's early investors), David Sacks (founder of Yammer) and Nicolas Berggruen of Berggruen Holdings. Ezetap was incubated by early stage investment fund Angel Prime.

"The payments landscape is changing rapidly and we believe mobile point of sales solutions will play an important role in helping to further enable commerce – especially in small merchant segments that have historically relied on cash – by delivering a smart and convenient way for small businesses to accept consumer payments," said Sanjay Rishi, president, American Express, South Asia.

Last month, American Express had invested $4.5 million in Bangalore-based Capillary Technologies Pvt Ltd, a cloud SaaS-based CRM solutions provider.

Mobile payments space has seen a lot of action recently. Last month, Mumbai-based mobile POS services provider Mswipe Technologies Pvt Ltd raised funding led by existing investor Matrix Partners. In January this year, 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 and two unnamed angel investors. In the same month, Bangalore-based mobile payment solutions provider iKaaz raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding led by Ananda Kallugadde, managing director of NeoBytes Software Solutions.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)