mPOS platform Ezetap raises INR 150 crores Series C funding from Social + Capital and others
Angel Prime-incubated mobile point-of-sale (mPOS) Ezetap has secured INR 150 crores in fresh funding from Social+Capital, Helion Advisors, and Berggruen Holdings, Horizons Ventures, the private investment arm for Li Ka-Shing, and the Capricorn Investment Group.
With this round, the company will reach over 2 lakh merchants and agents across India in the next 12 months.
Operational since 2013, Ezetap claims to have grown faster than the rest of the industry, deploying over 60,000 new points of sale across India in under 30 months. Importantly, Ezetap processes transactions worth over $1 million every day and has a customer base ranging from the most well-known enterprises to tens of thousands of small retail businesses.
Speaking about the funding, Abhijit Bose, Co-founder and CEO of Ezetap, said,
Our vision is to be the most preferred, lowest cost, and universal platform through which businesses transact and engage with their customers. This funding, along with Chamath’s active guidance from scaling Facebook, gives us the fuel to help Ezetap realize our vision and massive potential.
Ezetap earlier raised Series A funding from Social+Capital Partnership; Peter Thiel and others in November 2013 and $8 million Series B led by Helion in February last year.
The company’s clientele base consists of leading banks, including Citibank, HDFC Bank, and American Express, e-commerce, insurance and mobile companies. Ezetap is already activating over 500 new, small retail merchants a week and will use some of its funds to increase that by 5X in the next few months.
In November last year, Ezetap tied up with SBI to launch ‘Chota ATM’ for INR 499.
Ezetap mPOS turns any merchant’s mobile device into an intelligent point of sale which reads any type of card and complete any type of financial transaction -- from a credit card sale to a real-time bill payment, to an ATM cash withdrawal or deposit.
Speaking about the thesis behind the investment, Chamath Palihapitiya, Founder & Managing Partner, Social + Capital, said,
India is uniquely positioned to build an entirely new financial services ecosystem thanks to advancements like UID. Moreover, it’s clear to us that this revolution will be mobile first – from mPOS to mobile wallets, and that Ezetap is the only company which can seamlessly and agnostically support this fast changing landscape.
The payment services industry grew at a CAGR of 142.9% during the financial year 2012 - 2014. According to the research report published by Ken Research, India payments market will grow at a considerable CAGR, thus exceeding INR 8,172.7 billion by 2019.
The growth in the space is largely driven by rising number of digital payments and increase in ease of access of financial services across various regions in the country. The company broadly competes with Mswipe, iKaaz, Bijlipay and Paynear.
