Payments

Bitcoin payments fintech Bottlepay raises £11m seed round

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Investors in the seed round of the Bitcoin-based global payments app Bottlepay include billionaire hedge fund manager Alan Howard.

Bottlepay, a payments app bringing real-time global payments in Bitcoin and other currencies, has closed an £11m ($15m) seed funding round.

The app aims to cash in on the boom in digital payments by giving access to a real-time open payment network. This allows instant payments, including micropayments and cross border transactions.

While Bitcoin has c.65 million owners around the world there is a lack of use of the cryptocurrency for transactions owing to cumbersome and expensive fees.

Crypto bulls, however, believe this can change over time. Micropayments make a potential use case. For example, buying access to a paywalled news article from a global publication for a small amount would currently be prohibitive in terms of the merchant charges on the transaction.  

“The payments ecosystem is undergoing monumental changes as we move towards a cashless society. Today’s consumer wants to be able to transact freely and easily, without the restrictions of a traditional bank. We believe that with this cash injection, we can build a leading company in this rapidly growing space which will allow people to send, spend and receive payments in a way that works best for them,” said Bottlepay’s CEO Mark Webster.

Bottlepay says its new app also enables seamless social payments with a single tweet, message or social media post on platforms such as Twitter, Reddit and Discord.

Built on Bitcoin protocols, Bottlepay users can buy, store, send and withdraw Bitcoin with a single slide, unlike other digital payment platforms, whose users cannot currently spend their Bitcoin.

Bottlepay will use the funding to expand its team, improve functionality and increase the geographical reach of the service over the coming year.  

Investors taking part in the round include British billionaire hedge fund manager Alan Howard, venture capital firm FinTech Collective, and financial services firm NYDIG and tech entrepreneur Phil Doye. 

Sean Lippel, Principal and Head of Digital Assets at FinTech Collective, said: “While nearly 65 million people own Bitcoin globally, only a small fraction of that number actually transact daily, meaning we’ve only just begun to scratch the surface on the broader payment use cases for Bitcoin as an open-source money network. We believe Bottlepay’s elegant and intuitive consumer interface, built strategically on top of the power of the Lightning Network, will unlock social, streaming, and micropayments for digital assets. We were attracted to the team’s unique combination of technical and design talent, bound together with a laser-focus on privacy and regulatory compliance”.

BharatPe Pulls $108 Million in Series D Led by Coatue Management

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BharatPe, a Delhi-based financial services company, announced that it has raised $108 million in a Series D funding round led by the firm’s existing investor, Coatue Management. BharatPe has reached a total valuation of $900 million.

According to the official announcement, Ribbit Capital, Insight Partners, Steadview Capital, Beenext, Amplo and Sequoia Capital also participated in the latest funding round. The Indian fintech company secured $90 million in its primary funding round and allocated $18 million to ensure a secondary exit for its angel investors and employees.

BharatPe has raised a total of $268 million in equity and debt to date. The company enables merchants to accept payments through any payment app. The company is also offering loans and interest-based services.

Commenting on the latest funding round, Ashneer Grover, Co-founder and CEO of BharatPe, said: “2020 has been an unprecedented year for all. However, we at BharatPe have grown exponentially, our payments business has grown 5x and our lending business has grown 10x in the last 12 months. This growth reiterates the trust that the small merchants and Kirana store owners have showed in us. This is just the beginning of our journey, and we are committed to building India’s largest B2B financial services company that can serve as the one-stop destination for small merchants. For BharatPe, merchants will always be at the core of everything we build.”

Mesh Payments raises $13mn in funding round

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Mesh Payments, the US-based fintech that manages corporate, cardless payment processing, raised $13m in its latest funding round. The round included participation from Meron Capital, R-Squared Ventures (an angel fund) Ventures and was led by TLV Partners.

Mesh gives services that increase the efficiency and speed of payments so that important decisions can be made based on real-time data. This cuts out bottlenecks, lack of visibility and oversight. It also eliminates dependency that adversely impacts companies and causes significant organisational downtime if cards are missed, misused or simply expire.

With the growth of SaaS and cloud services, SME’s are using an standard of 40-plus SaaS tools a year to handle their businesses, many of which are mission-critical. This makes unforeseen downtime particularly detrimental.

Mesh also offers a wide range of solutions, including PO’s for vendors, monthly AWS subscriptions and employee travel expenditures. Customers set policies, limits, automatically manage their receipts and receive real-time reports, giving them full visibility and control over their corporate payments. Mesh issues virtual cards with a configuration for both online and offline payments, leveraging the growing acceptance of mobile wallets including Apple Pay, Google Wallet and more.

Oded Zehavi, CEO and Co-Founder of Mesh Payments, explained, “Since the onset of Covid-19 and the overnight explosion in remote work, there has been exponential growth of financial executives searching for a more effective way to orchestrate their corporate spending.”

He continued, “Over the last few months, we have seen a 20x spike in our business. Unlike other services which position themselves as a next-gen corporate credit card, we view the challenge as a corporate payment problem and not a corporate card problem. This has impacted how we built our solution and we believe that the simplicity and security our solution offers perfectly positions Mesh to continue capturing larger pieces of the corporate payments market.”

Paytm in talks to rope in UBS as investor

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A fund operated by UBS’s asset management arm is in talks to buy a stake in Paytm alongside some of the Swiss bank’s clients, according to people close to the talks. UBS is discussing the purchase of Paytm stock from a group of the Indian fintech company’s employees, the people stated.

Paytm was last valued at $16 billion during a 2019 funding round, but its price is likely to have increased substantially in a market where governing pressure for a move away from cash and the Covid-19 pandemic have combined to create a great storm for digital payments.

Speaking at a Reuters conference Wednesday, Paytm CEO Vijay Shekar Sharma said the firm was on the cusp of turning its first profit.

“We could very well break even this year, we will start making money,” he told the conference. “I was surprised by the opportunity of monetization in 2020 during the pandemic, not just by our wealth accounts but also by lending.”

China’s Ant Financial has a 30% stake in Paytm, although claims abound that the Chinese giant is about to cash in its holdings due to escalating political tensions between the two countries.

London based Fintech Rapyd Raises $300 mn

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“The demand for online payments has skyrocketed following the restrictions due to the effects of COVID, and as a company, we are well placed to provide businesses across the globe with the solutions they need and to get them up and running fast,” Rapyd Co-Founder and CEO Arik Shtilman said in a press release.

The round included numerous new investors — Spark Capital, Avid Ventures, FJ Labs, and Latitude — as well as current investors General Catalyst, Oak FT, Tiger Global, Target Global, Durable Capital, Tal Capital and Entrée Capital.

This latest round of funding will be allotted to grow the engineering and product teams and advance the self-service functioning of Rapyd’s ecosystem. The London-headquartered FinTech is trying to enable businesses across the globe to rapidly onboard and start using the platform’s full capabilities.

Early last year Rapyd acquired European card acquirer Korta in early 2020 and is also considering into acquisitions in the Americas, Asia-Pacific and Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

“The payment landscape varies dramatically across countries. A company performing business internationally might need to take hundreds of local payment methods,” Kris Fredrickson, controlling partner at Coatue, said in the release.

The company’s payments network and FaaS platform facilitate local and cross-border operations for businesses and individuals. Rapyd is trying to bring together the more than 900 payment systems divided across over 100 countries.

In July, Rapyd cooperated with Mexican payment providers to establish an integrated payment solution in Mexico. The country has been increasing its online payments capabilities and has noticed annual eCommerce escalate almost 30 percent.

At $15bn valuation, Checkout.com becomes fourth largest fintech company in the world

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UK based online payments startup Checkout.com has tripled its valuation to $15 billion following a Series C funding round, making it the fourth largest fintech business globally.

The company, which provides merchants with a single platform combining payments, fraud monitoring and analytics, has raised $450 million in a fundraising led by Tiger Global Management, effectively tripling its valuation from its last funding round in June 2020.

The investment comes on the back of a series of impressive growth stats, which includes a tripling of payments processing volumes and the addition of 500 new merchant accounts.

Alongside traditional large-scale retailers, Checkout.com also provides the payments processing backbone for a host of innovative fintechs, including the likes of Klarna, Revolut, Transferwise, Coinbase, and eToro.

UK Based Curve Closes $95 mn Funding Round

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UK-based FinTech company Curve has raised $95 mn in Series C funding led by IDC Ventures, Fuel Venture Capital, and the investment division of Vulcan Capital, launched from the estate of Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul G. Allen.

Founder and Curve CEO Shachar Bialick said in a press release on Tuesday (Jan. 12) that the company strives to “empower as many people as possible to take control of their money,” and this latest round of funding is testament to that mission.

“We are ecstatic that our investors share Curve’s vision” Bialick added, calling the fundraising “an endorsement of Curve’s unique product strategy.”

The new resources bring Curve’s total funding to almost $175 million despite the economic fallout due to COVID-19 restrictions.

“Curve’s revolutionary approach to business is more necessary than ever as we accelerate globally to a digital-first world,” said Bobby Aitkenhead, Managing Partner of IDC Ventures.

IDC started investing in Curve last year and thinks this year, the company can successfully gauge, “reaching more people, with more products in more regions,” Aitkenhead said.

In the last year, Curve extended its contribution in its 31 European markets to include Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Google Pay. In December: Curve partnered with Plaid to bring open banking to the U.K.

The first office in the U.S. Curve opened last year in Brooklyn, New York, will be the U.S. headquarters. The expansion to the U.S. is being managed by Amanda Orson, vice president and head of North America. She was previously managing partner of media group W2PY and an adviser to Gauss Ventures, according to the release.

“Curve’s model is redefining the future of banking by bringing diverse financial products and solutions together into one digital wallet, for the benefit of banks and customers alike. Their friction-free offering is coming at the ideal time for American consumers, who are looking for safer payment options and greater financial control in the wake of the pandemic. We are excited to be part of the next phase in Curve’s ambitious journey,” Rick Roberts, from Vulcan Capital, said.

Philippines based fintech startup GCash raises $175 mn from Bow Wave

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Globe Fintech Innovations (Mynt), the FinTech arm of Globe Telecom and operator of the country’s mobile wallet, GCash, has attracted fresh capital investment from ASP Philippines LP, a limited partnership fund managed by investment firm Bow Wave Capital Management (Bow Wave), to further shoot the growth of financial presence and the digitization of payments and financial services in the Philippines. Mynt raised over US$175 million in fresh capital from Bow Wave and its existing shareholders in multiple tranches, with post-money valuation of the final tranches at close to US$1 billion.

“This investment from Bow Wave is a validation of both what we have accomplished as well as the potential of GCash in unlocking digital services in the Philippines,” said Martha Sazon, President and Chief Executive Officer of Mynt. “The pandemic has acted as a catalyst in highlighting the importance of digital finance in society today and with this investment from Bow Wave, we look forward to further living out our vision of finance for all, enabling democratized access to payment and financial services to every Filipino.”

Across 2020, GCash has been helping Filipinos get through their daily lives by supplying them with digital payment options.

GCash recorded a gross transaction value of over Php 1 trillion in 2020 spurred by services such as online payments, bank cash-in and sending money. So far, GCash has vested over 33 million Filipinos with digital financial tools and services through its innovative mobile wallet. Customers have been able to maximize the use of their mobile wallets to manage physically and online, to purchase airtime load, to open deposit accounts, to save and invest in money market funds, and to obtain insurance products.

Bow Wave is a close-ended private equity fund with a mandate to invest globally in online and mobile payment ecosystem companies. Bow Wave’s investment in Mynt, its first in the Philippines, will translate to a minority equity interest in the Mynt. “Mynt has made great strides in the fintech space in the Philippines. Recognizing this fact and our shared values, Bow Wave supports the vision of Mynt to provide finance for all Filipinos. We are excited for this investment and we hope to add value to Mynt as it realizes its vision,” remarked Itai Lemberger, Founder and CIO of Bow Wave

Accel Leads One Of The Largest Series B Funding Rounds In French Fintech Lydia

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Lydia, the French fintech firm has raised $86 million in an extension of its second funding round led by venture capital firm Accel. It allows fast money transfer between users.

The deal was structured as an extension of its Series B funding round, bringing the total funds raised in the round to $131 million, making it the largest raised by a French fintech company.

Launched in 2013, Lydia has so far raised over $160 million in funding from investors such as Tencent, XAnge, New Alpha, Groupe Duval and Founders Future.

$30M Pre-Series B Round Secured By UK Based Buy Now Pay Later Fintech Zilch

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A UK based company Zilch, buy now, pay later fintech, declared it secured $30 million through its oversubscribed pre Series B in less than three weeks. The latest funding round occurs just a few months after Zilch raised $10 million.

 Zilch offers a Buy Now Pay Later facility that allows consumers to pay for a purchase in the course of six weeks without any fees or interest.

“Zilch ensures that customers never over-borrow by making use of Open Banking and AI to determine each customer’s level of affordability and only funds low-value discretionary purchases. As a result, Zilch’s customers rarely default and make use of the product as a cash flow management tool, which has proven to be of huge value during this COVID period.”

Zilch also stated that it has seen customers increase fourfold over the last six months and transaction volume increase by more than 100% month-on-month.

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