Fintech firm Ezetap secures $16 Mn funding led by JS Capital

Enterprise payments solutions firm Ezetap has raised $16 million in a growth round led by JS Capital Management, a US-based venture capital fund.

The funding round also saw participation from existing investors Social Capital and Hong Kong-based Horizons Ventures, who raise their shareholding in the firm.

As a part of the deal, Salil Seshadri from JS Capital Management joins the board of directors at Ezetap.

"We raised a smaller round since we are planning to use this mainly as growth capital to expand sales, customer base and enhance technology," CEO Abhijit Bose was quoted by ET.

"The participation of blue-chip investors guarantees us access to huge amounts of capital," he added.

#Ezetap is happy to announce that we have raised $16 Million in a new round of #funding, paving our way to make a fully #DigitalIndia! pic.twitter.com/hIpUKLNSXi

— Ezetap (@ezetap) August 24, 2017

In the past, Ezetap had partnered with SBI and Citibank to deploy PoS terminals across the country and to launch a mobile payment solution for merchants targeting credit and debit card holders in India respectively.

The mPOS (Mobile point of sale) platform had expanded to Kenya with its payment solution a few years ago, is also looking to enter Malaysia by December.

Bangaluru-based Ezetap, was founded in 2011 by Abhijit Bose and Bhakta Keshavachar, has over the years evolved as a payments platform targeted at enterprises. The firm has developed a software framework that allows businesses to configure the Ezetap platform with their existing CRM framework and any internal and external applications.

Fintech company claims to have enabled digital payments for more than 200,000 merchants and users across India over the past six years. It is targeting monthly transaction volumes of Rs 3,000 crore in one year, up from Rs 800-900 crore a month that it generates currently.

In August 2015, the company had raised Rs 150 crore in a Series C round from Social Capital, Helion Advisors, Berggruen Holdings, as well as Horizons Ventures. Prior to that it raised $8 million in a funding round led by Helion Advisors, Social+Capital, and Berggruen Holdings in February 2014, $3.5 million in November 2012, and an undisclosed amount from American Express in March 2014.

According to a report by global telecom body GSM Association and Boston Consulting Group, more than 50% of India's Internet users will use digital payments by 2020, when the size of digital payments industry in the country will be $500 billion.

Of late, a large number of fintech startups have received funding from investors. In July, Billionloans raised $1 mn from Reliance Capital, Mumbai-based LaonTap secured $4 million from Kae Capital and others, Open raises $250k from PayU India executives, Trupay raises $700K from Kae Capitals to name a few.

Ezetap competes with the likes of Mswipe, Bijlipay, iKaaz, ePaisa, to name a few.

Ezetap: Website