Start-up NPX Technologies recently raised $1.75 million in its first financing round. BRM Capital made the investment. NPX was founded by CEO Saar Wilf, who previously founded micropayments company Trivnet. This was the first investment managed by BRM Capital managing director Eli Barkat since returning to Israel after eight years residence in the US. Barkat will join NPX's board of directors.
NPX was founded in secret a few months ago. The company is developing automatic verification tools for online purchases. Wilf says the identification and verification process of online buyers is frequently manual and complicated, raising the cost of the process for sellers.
NPX's concept is to make the verification process more reliable, and without the need for manual verification, such as calling or faxing the buyer's bank.
Wilf said, "We have a preliminary product operating with some small and medium-sized customers. We raised money in order to expand our customer base. The capital will be used for further R&D. as well as intensifying our sales and marketing efforts around the world."
Barkat said today that Internet-related risks were slowing the development of e-commerce, and costing an estimated $5 billion in damage a year. "NPX's product has the potential of becoming a significant component in improving e-commerce transactions."
Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on November 25, 2004