Enterprise payments firm Airpay secures Series A funding from Kalaari Capital, others

Mumbai-based payment services startup Airpay has raised Rs 24 crore ($3.6 million) as part of a Series A round led by Kalaari Capital and existing investors Rakesh and Rajesh Jhunjhunwala.

The company, operated by Airpay Payment Services Pvt. Ltd, will use the funds to build its technology, sales, distribution and support infrastructure to expand its enterprise customer base, it said in a statement.

Founded by Amit Kapoor, Kunal Jhunjhunwala and Rohan Deshpande in 2012, Airpay offers various payments services to medium and large enterprises. Its omni-channel platform provides enterprise software as a service (SaaS) solutions to its clients to accept inbound payments from consumers (C2B) and process outbound payments to pay vendors (B2B).

Customers can make payments across web, mobile, call centre, interactive voice response software, email, SMS and face-to-face. The company claims to offer real-time visibility of payment collection, advanced analytics and reporting of user payment data.

Several fintech companies have managed to gain investor attention in the past few months.

Bengaluru-based Chalk Farm Ventures Pvt. Ltd, which runs consumer lending startup ZestMoney, had raised $6.5 million (Rs 43.5 crore) in a Series A round of funding led by Naspers-owned online payments firm PayU.

In January, online payments gateway BillDesk had acquired a financial technology product from a Kochi-based company to increase capabilities in the mobile commerce segment.

Telecom major Bharti Airtel had acquired a strategic stake in Goa-based financial technology startup Seynse Technologies Pvt. Ltd. in February this year. In the same month, e-commerce firm Infibeam had entered into a pact to merge CCAvenue with itself in a deal that is expected to value the payment gateway firm at Rs 2,000 crore ($298 million).

At the same time, United Arab Emirates-based payments solutions provider OMA Emirates had acquired Mumbai-based payments firm MobiSwipe for an undisclosed sum, to broaden its overall portfolio in the Middle East, Eastern Europe and APAC regions.

Recent investments made by Kalaari Capital include a digital publication targeted at young women POPxo.com, a Delhi-based fintech startup Affordplan and e-commerce platform Snapdeal.