Indian mobile payment provider ToneTag, which enables contactless payments through mobile phones using sound waves or NFC technology, has raised US$1m from Reliance Capital... More
Investment
LivQuick raises $1.6m for mobile wallet
Mumbai-based LivQuik, the company behind mobile payment service QuikWallet, has raised US$1.6m from existing investor Snow Leopard Ventures to scale its team, technology and merchant base... More
Famoco raises €4m in financing round
French NFC device maker Famoco has secured €4m in a financing round led by Hi Inov... More
Ant Financial valued at US$45bn
Chinese e-commerce giant Ant Financial has completed a Series A financing round that values the company at more than US$45bn and makes the Chinese government a stakeholder, New York Times reports... More
Alibaba and Ant Financial invest nearly $1bn in Koubei mobile commerce platform
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba and Alipay parent Ant Financial have each invested RMB3bn (US$483m) into Koubei, a joint venture that will let consumers order and pay for local services in China using their smartphone, “with an initial focus on the food and beverage segment”... More
Thinfilm gets $22m investment
Printed electronics specialist Thinfilm has closed a private placement in which “several” US investors have invested a total of US$22m... More
China UnionPay to take NFC to Hong Kong
China UnionPay has invested an undisclosed sum in Jetco, the largest ATM network operator in Hong Kong and Macau... More
Sequent closes funding round
Secure NFC specialist Sequent Software has closed a funding round for an undisclosed sum that will be used to support its expansion into global markets... More
Verizon announces investment in SimplyTapp
PARTNER NEWS: Verizon Ventures, the investment arm of US carrier Verizon, has revealed that it was the undisclosed lead investor in a Series B funding round for HCE specialist SimplyTapp that totalled US$6m... More
Face++ raises $25m for selfie payments
Face++, the Chinese facial recognition technology startup behind Alibaba’s selfie payments service, has secured an additional $25m in a series B funding round, taking the total raised to $47m... More
Twitter invests in beacon marketer Swirl
Twitter has invested an undisclosed sum in Boston-based proximity marketing specialist Swirl, hinting the social media platform could be looking at using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons to push messages. The social media giant has invested alongside Hearst Ventures, Softbank Capital and others in an $18m series-C round, taking the total raised by Swirl so far to $32m... More
First Tech to run biometric triple test
First Tech Federal Credit Union is to run a pilot later this year in partnership with MasterCard that will see cardholders being given the ability to authenticate and verify their transactions using a combination of face, voice and fingerprint verification... More
Mozido buys PayEase
Mobile payments platform provider Mozido has acquired Chinese cross-border payment gateway provider PayEase with the aim of introducing its mobile payments and retail marketing solutions into the Chinese market... More
HCE specialist SimplyTapp raises an additional US$2.5m
PARTNER NEWS: Fast growing mobile payments platform provider Mozido has made a US$2.5m investment in SimplyTapp, bringing the total amount raised in the host card emulation (HCE) specialist’s Series B financing round to US$10.1m... More
Visa Europe to invest in digital payments
Visa Europe is to invest more than €200m a year in new payments technologies to accelerate the growth of digital payments, the payments network has announced... More
Ringly raises US$5.1m for light-up rings
Wearable technology company Ringly has raised US$5.1m in Series A funding to produce a range of connected jewellery that links to a smartphone, and alerts the wearer with a variety of customizable notifications by lighting up and vibrating... More
Alibaba invests in visual QR codes
Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba has invested an undisclosed sum in Israeli start-up Visualead, developer of the “visual” QR code technology adopted by Chinese social media site RenRen in May last year... More
European payments startup funding surges
Nascent payments and transaction processing companies in Europe raised US$417.9m through 26 deals in the nine months to September, more than seven times the amount raised during the same period last year, research from Dow Jones VentureSource reveals... More
MasterCard to offer interactive payment cards to its issuers around the world
Interactive payment card developer Dynamics has signed a deal with MasterCard that will see the payments network offering the startup’s technology to its issuers around the world. MasterCard has also participated in Dynamics’ US$70m Series C funding round along with Canada’s CIBC and existing investors. More
Keyssa unveils high speed short range ‘kiss’ connectivity technology
Keyssa, a US startup backed by US$47m in funding from investors that include Intel, Samsung and Dolby Family Ventures and chaired by Nest founder Tony Fadell, has unveiled Kiss Connectivity, a solid-state embedded connector that can be used to transfer data between two devices at up to six gigabits per second. More