Payments funding round-up: 12 September 2017
Paytech start-ups continue to make headlines with investments and accolades, writes Paybefore (Banking Technology’s sister publication).
Pineapple Payments announced a $35 million equity investment for its merchant-focused payments technology, PayJoy snagged $6 million while B2BPay won BBVA’s Open Talent Global Fintech for Companies competition.
First, the big money. Pittsburgh-based Pineapple Payments, which offers omnichannel payment processing technology, has secured a $35 million growth equity commitment from Providence Strategic Growth (PSG), the an affiliate of Providence Equity Partners, a global private equity firm with more than $50 billion in assets under management.
Pineapple targets business-to-business (B2B), business-to-government (B2G) and integrated software vendors and is led by CEO Brian P. Shanahan, who has spent 26 years in payments, most recently at CardConnect. (First Data acquired CardConnect earlier this year for $750 million.)
“We currently have executed letters of intent with three completely unique organisations that together serve 30,000 merchants and process $11 billion annually. We believe these deals will allow Pineapple to leverage the best technology and product offerings in the industry to drive future growth by enhancing the merchant-facing payments experience,” Shanahan says.
PayJoy, which offers smartphone financing for underserved consumers, has closed $6 million of new investment with strategic partners that will help the San Francisco-based company, which has offices in Mexico City, to further expand throughout Latin America, Asia and Africa.
Currently available in thousands of points-of-sale throughout the US and Mexico, PayJoy is able to approve applicants without a formal credit history or banking relationships by leveraging “a unique underwriting process”.
The investment was led by Santander InnoVentures, the fintech venture capital fund of Santander Group, and Itochu Corp, one of the largest Japanese general trading companies in Asia. Other strategic partners joined from Brazil, Nigeria, Mexico, China, Vietnam and Europe. This investment brings PayJoy’s total equity and debt financing to $30 million since its 2015 founding.
And finally, Finland-based B2BPay earned the top spot among hundreds of entries in its segment in BBVA’s Open Talent competition “because of the way its solution enables SME businesses to grow internationally and trade with greater ease”, BBVA says.
B2BPay gives companies, once the required due diligence checks have been cleared, a virtual IBAN number for a virtual bank account. That bank account can then be used to receive payments from other companies across the EU with the funds then transferred to the company’s local bank account.
“Euro payments in 35 European countries are handled without any fee (in most cases, or a nominal fee if there’s a fee) and SEPA payments are usually settled the next business day,” says B2BPay.
The BBVA Open Talent Fintech for Companies challenge was launched in March as part of BBVA’s wider Open Talent competition.
