CityCash, a public transit-focused offline and contactless payments company, said Tuesday it has raised $1 million (around Rs 7.5 crore) in seed funding from early-stage venture capital firm Orios Venture Partners.
The Mumbai-based startup, which is operated by Tap Smart Data Information Services Pvt. Ltd, will use the capital to expand its market and merchant ecosystem, it said in a statement.
It will also use part of the funds to deploy open loop national common mobility cards on SoftPoS, a mobile-based point of sale system, and digital ticketing solutions.
CityCash was founded in 2017 by Vineet Toshniwal, former managing director at Equirus Capital. The startup provides a multi-purpose NFC-based (near field communication) smart card that consumers can use to make transactions for public transport or retail in an offline tap-and-pay based payments mode.
This is especially useful at a time when social distancing and contactless payments are the need of the hour in a world battling the coronavirus pandemic.
The startup has partnered with MSRTC, the state bus corporation of Maharashtra. It has issued three million cards to consumers in nine months since it went live. The card is accepted in 20,000 buses, it said.
Anup Jain, managing partner at Orios, said CityCash is positioned to create a transit-led, offline tap-and-pay ecosystem on the lines of globally successful models of Octopus in Hong Kong and Oyster in London.
Prior to this fundraise, CityCash had raised an undisclosed amount from financial services company FINO PayTech Ltd in December 2018.
Deals in the fintech space
Investor interest in the financial-technology segment has continued unabated despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Earlier this month, fintech platform Crowdpouch raised angel funding from Elina Investments.
Late last month, Matrix Partners and SAIF Partners participated in the seed funding round of fintech firm Jodo.
Also in July, group payments-focused goDutch raised $1.7 million in a seed funding round led by Matrix and blockchain-based chit fund management platform ChitMonks secured about Rs 5 crore from early-stage investor Unicorn India Ventures.
