Excl: MobiSwipe in talks to raise up to $7M in Series A funding; rolls out chip-and-pin mPOS solution for merchants

Mumbai-based mobile payment solutions provider MobiSwipe Technologies Pvt Ltd in talks with three-four investors to raise $5-7 million (Rs 31-43 crore) in its Series A round of funding, a top executive of the firm told Techcircle.in. The company expects to close the round by the first quarter of next calendar year.

"We are in the second levels of discussions with the investors," said Harmeet Singh Arora, co-founder of MobiSwipe.

"Our existing investor One97 Mobility fund is also interested in participating in the round. The capital would go towards hiring talent as well as for product development," he added.

MobiSwipe was founded in 2012 by Suresh Santhanaramakrishnan, a founding member of BharatMatrimony.com, and Arora, a veteran in the web and mobile space. It offers a mobile payment service to merchants to accept debit and credit card payments anywhere, anytime. In November 2012, the startup had raised undisclosed funding from early-stage investor One97 Mobility Fund.

Rolls out chip-and-pin mPOS solution for merchants

The company has also announced the launch of a chip-and-pin mPOS solution that allows merchants to turn their smartphone or tablet into a mobile point of sale through a pin-enabled card reader device and a mobile app. The card reader can be connected to smartphones or tablets via Bluetooth and it also has an LCD and pin-pad for pin entry. The card reader can accept multiple card payments, including chip-and-magnetic stripe cards.

The company has partnered with Corporation Bank to launch the new mPOS solution. MobiSwipe has already partnered with around 100 merchants to deploy the solution, said Arora.

"With the launch of the new technology, we aim to capture a significant share of the mPOS market in India since we have about 418 million credit and debit cards against only about one million POS terminals in the country," he added.

The mobile payments market in India has been witnessing surge in interest, with a number of companies launching PoS solutions. Some of the startups that offer mobile-based PoS payments are PayMate, MSwipe, EzeTap and iKaaZ.