Mobile payments firm Ezetap raises Rs 150 crores to fund growth

Ezetap Mobile Solutions, the Bangalore-based pioneer in mobile payments for emerging markets, recently  announced that is has raised Rs. 150 crores in fresh funding. Ezetap’s current investors; Social+Capital, Helion Advisors, and Berggruen Holdings are joined by Horizons Ventures, the private investment arm for Li Ka-Shing, and the Capricorn Investment Group in this round. Social+Capital founder Chamath Palihapitiya will become Chairman of Board - the first time the former Facebook executive has taken on this role with a portfolio company outside the United States.

"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 who can seamlessly and agnostically support this fast changing landscape,” said Chamath Palihapitiya, Founder & Managing Partner, Social + Capital.

Started in 2011 and launched in 2013, Ezetap has grown much faster than the rest of the industry, deploying over 60,000 new points of sale across India in under 30 months. Ezetap processes transactions worth over $1 million per day and has a customer base ranging from the most well known enterprises to tens of thousands of small retail businesses.

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.”

“What makes MPOS unique is that every Ezetap mobile application being used by a merchant is configurable and smart. This is a fundamental change from the way payments have worked for decades and why it never scaled in India. Not only can we easily enable a storekeeper anywhere in the country to accept all forms of payments and increase their sales, we can actually turn his or her small shop into a bill payment centre, eGovernment service point, full service bank branch, and much more with only a few keystrokes in Bangalore. We are a true ‘Make In India’ company that will help deliver the promise of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana.”

While many enterprises, including some of the leading eCommerce, Insurance and mobile companies, have standardized on Ezetap and deployed its integrated solution, the company also sees huge potential in the smaller and medium business sector. 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.

Sanjay Swamy, Co-Founder and Vice-Chairman, Ezetap said, "Ezetap has moved beyond a start-up into a market-defining leader, and is now in the growth phase. Chamath invented and pioneered the concept of a growth team at Facebook. We’re excited to have him as Chairman and to have him actively guide the team through this exciting journey."

The Ezetap solution turns any merchant’s mobile device into an intelligent point of sale that is able to read 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. The Ezetap solution is comprised of a configurable mobile application, a secure and lightweight card reader, and a flexible platform that allows Ezetap to provide customized value-added services and integrate to a merchant’s existing systems. Ezetap’s technology has been developed and built in India, and is compliant with global security guidelines.

Ezetap has partnerships with leading banks including Citibank, HDFC Bank, and American Express, who is also an investor in the company. Most recently, State Bank of India chose Ezetap to be its mPOS partner in order to help scale electronic payments and banking services to every corner of the country.