Israeli social payments startup PayKey has raised $6 million, as part of a Series B finance round of $10 million, led by MizMaa, a US and Chinese backed venture capital fund.
The latest funding announcement follows a $6 million raise in November 2016 to further develop the mobile payment service, which lets bank customers transfer money instantly using popular social networks and messaging apps such as Facebook’s Messenger, WhatsApp and Twitter.
PayKey was founded in 2014 by CEO Daniel Peled and CTO Offer Markovich and has raised $12.4 million to date including the latest financing. Previous investors include e-ventures, Magma, Digital, CommerzVentures, Santander InnoVentures and Leaders Ventures, as well as MasterCard and Gabby Salem from Wharton Asset Management.
Peled said, “In the first half of this year we’ve had unprecedented global interest from financial institutions and investors in our solution, which is now available through Westpac in Australia, Garanti Bank in Turkey, Davivienda in Colombia and Sparebank 1 in Norway, proving our ability to lead in the emerging social banking space."
Additional rollouts are expected in Singapore and other territories in the coming months, he adds.
Turkey’s Garanti Bank launched the PayKey button to meet the P2P needs of millennial consumers as they chat over popular messaging services.
“Despite non-traditional competitors gaining traction in the market, the current disruption of non-bank P2P providers to banks has been widely overstated,” says Bora Uluduz, SVP of digital banking at Garanti Bank. “We view the mobile P2P transfer market as an exciting opportunity to meet the emerging expectations of our younger customers. With Garanti Mobile Keyboard, developed by PayKey and integrated to our mobile app - Garanti Mobile, we will provide a quick, intuitive and contextual P2P user experience across all social networks and messaging applications.”
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 25, 2017
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