Mobile payments firm Ezetap Mobile Solutions Pvt Ltd has raised $16 million (Rs 102 crore) in a round led by US-based JS Capital Management, the investment fund of Jonathan Soros, a company statement said.
Existing investors Palo Alto-based Social Capital and Li Ka-Shing’s Horizons Ventures also participated in the round, increasing their stake in the company. As part of this round, Salil Seshadri from JS Capital Management will join Ezetap’s board, the press note added.
Ezetap will use the funds to grow its sales and operations across India and abroad.
“We have been watching what’s been going on in fintech in India for several years, and have been impressed by the number of technical, business, and operational challenges that Ezetap has solved enroute to creating the model for how we believe payments will be handled in the future,†said Soros, founder and chief executive of JS Capital Management.
Ezetap said it has raised more than $51 million in funding to date. The Bangalore-based company in 2015 raised $24 million in its Series C round from existing investors Social Capital, Helion Advisors, Berggruen Holdings, Horizons Ventures and others. Some of its other investors include American Express, Prime Venture Partners, and Capricorn Ventures (Jeff Skoll Group)
Founded in 2011 by Abhijit Bose (CEO) and Bhaktha Keshavachar (CTO), Ezetap’s payments platform allows merchants to accept any digital transaction—physical cards, online payments, wallets, in-app payments via the unified payments interface system—across any device or interface including biometric, messaging services, or digital QR code.
The company claims that it enables digital payments for more than 200,000 merchants and users across India and processes $135 million in transactions monthly.
"More than 15 million consumers have transacted on Ezetap’s platform. Our annual GTC (gross transaction) run rate is $1.45 billion across all transaction types, with $1.23 billion for cards alone," the company said in the statement.
Ezetap recently acquired payment startup FortunePay to enhance its payment processing infrastructure for banks.
“India is on the brink of a massive surge in consumer consumption, but not until the underlying payments infrastructure is securely in place,†said Chamath Palihapitiya, founder and CEO of Social Capital.
Of late, the fin-tech space has seen considerable investor interest. A recent VCCircle analysis showed that since the beginning of the year, at least 25 fin-tech startups have raised venture funding, and, the number is growing.
The inflows have been well-distributed across the broader fintech space—while digital wallet firm Paytm may have got the biggest slice of the funding pie, raising a whopping $1.4 billion from SoftBank, online lending and payment gateway startups also elicited considerable interest from investors.
Earlier this month, MobiKwik raised Rs 225 crore ($35.4 million) from Bajaj Finance Ltd.
Earlier this week, digital lending platform Capital Float raised $45 million (Rs 293 crore) in its Series C funding round led by Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Ribbit Capital. Existing investors SAIF Partners, Sequoia India and Creation Investments also participated in the round.
