Payments firm Ezetap raises $16 million
Payments solution firm Ezetap has raised $16 million in a new funding round, led by JS Capital Management, the venture fund of Jonathan Soros. Existing investors— Social Capital and Li Ka-shing’s Horizons Ventures — also participated in this round and increased their stake in the firm.
Ezetap’s platform allows merchants to accept digital payments from physical cards, wallets or one-click payments in applications via India’s new UPI (Unified Payment Interface) system and any device or interface including biometric, SMS and digital QR code.
Its software can integrate with a customer’s delivery app, making it popular with logistics or e-commerce firms. While most payment firms make money through transaction fees, Ezetap is one of the first companies to pursue software-as-a-service business model.
It has raised more than $51 million in funding. Its investors include Social Capital, the Silicon Valley firm, led by former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya, Helion Advisors, American Express, Li Kashing’s Horizons Ventures, JS Capital, Prime Venture Partners, and Capricorn Venture (Jeff Skoll Group). “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 chief executive officer of Social Capital.
“Ezetap is in an incredible position, with deep IP and no obvious US proxy — it’s like a combination of Stripe, AWS and Android, built for the complexities of the Indian market,” he said in a statement.
Ezetap will use this funding to grow in India and enter emerging markets in Southeast Asia. Salil Seshadri of JS Capital will join the Board.
It claims to have grown 8x in the past 18 months and plans to increase transaction volume by another 3x in the next 18 months. It bought FortunePay for payment processing infrastructure for banks. Founded by SIlicon Valley veterans in 2011, Ezetap is one of the pioneers in the mobile point-of-sale (PoS) market, and seen massive growth over the past year and has over 200,000 merchants and users across India.