India’s PayMate, a B2B payments in India has raised $25 million in a new series D round of growth capital to accelerate expansion within India and internationally to Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa (CEMEA).
The investors included Japan’s Recruit Strategic Partners, Brand Capital, existing investor Mayfair 101, and Visa. Visa and PayMate will extend their working partnership in India and Central Europe, Middle East and Africa regions.
In a statement, Ajay Adiseshann, Founder & CEO, PayMate, “We are very excited to have Visa come onboard as an investor which will help complement our existing commercial partnership with them and help us scale faster by combining capital with Visa’s network.”
Ajay added that the participation of Recruit holdings from Japan, existing investor Mayfair101 and Brand Capital further validates the firm’s business model, traction and growth potential.
Africa is becoming a major market for global players. Recently Naspers PayU’s successfully launched Kenyan operations after approved by the Central Bank of Kenya. According to PayU, launch into Kenya is a door to Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda – countries that have shown real GDP growth.
Two months ago, TechMoran reported that payments firm Adyen partnered with pan-African payments firm Cellulant to offer its global merchants access to key local payment methods in major African markets.
The deal will saw Adyen bring mobile money platforms such as M-PESA, Airtel Money, Equitel, Tigo Pesa and MTN Mobile Money, as well as several online and mobile banking payment methods to eBay, Facebook, Airbnb, Spotify, Uber and Netflix.
The deal will also give Adyen access to 40 mobile money operators, over 600 local & international merchants and over 120 banks in Africa who work with Cellulant.
PayMate enables Enterprise and SME businesses to seamlessly automate and digitize their entire procurement to payment cycle (Procure-to-Pay). Some of its features include vendor management, vendor payments, customer payments, invoicing, supply chain financing options, and many more. I
PayMate helps businesses become more efficient, cut operational costs, gain greater control and transparency, and improve cash flows. Over 35,000 businesses use PayMate and it processes approximately $5B in payments annually.
This is not the first time PayMate and Visa are working together. The two firms have worked closely with multiple banks in India to enable businesses with digital payments, faster access to credit, and more efficient ways to manage cash flow.
In March this year, PayMate partnered Visa to expand these services into Central Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The new deal will allow Visa’s to extend PayMate’s platform to its corporate and small business customers, giving these customers the ability to make faster payments using Visa commercial cards.
“There is an opportunity to bring efficiencies into the B2B payments supply chain via richer data and automated processes. PayMate’s platform makes it possible for businesses to replace time-consuming, expensive manual processes with digital ways to manage their working capital. At Visa, we believe it is critical to partner with local players who are bringing innovation to our global payments network, and our investment in PayMate reflects that,” said T R Ramachandran, Group Country Manager, India and South Asia at Visa.
PayMate is trying to remove the blockages in this flow through its holistic platform that automates the business payment process and provides essential rails to move the funds swiftly and efficiently.
