Paynear to raise $10 mn from Chennai-based HNI investor

Paynear, founded in early 2013, went live in November 2014 with mPay, a mobile point of sale (POS) solution designed for merchants and businesses

Paynear Solutions Private Limited, a Hyderabad-based payment solutions startup, is in the process of raising a growth fund of $10 million (approximately Rs 63 crore) to beef up its product portfolio and expand pan-India and abroad.

"We are already in talks with a Chennai-based high-networth individual (HNI) investor for the fundraising. We expect to close the deal by the end of next month," Paynear founder and chief executive officer, Priti Shah, said.

Paynear, founded in early 2013, went live in Nov 2014 with mPay, a mobile point of sale (POS) solution designed for merchants and businesses of all sizes and verticals. With mPay, merchants can start accepting credit and debit cards through iOS and Android on tablets and smartphones.

Stating that Paynear's mKiosk product was in the beta while it was readying ePay, an ecommerce gateway, for launch, she said the company was also contemplating rolling out a eWallet pre-paid solution, which was currently in the drawing board stage.

"We are present in Hyderabad, Mumbai, New Delhi, Pune, Bengaluru, Kochi and Chennai. We plan to enter 15 more Indian cities in another one year," Shah said, adding the company was planning to go international by offering its solutions in the US and Africa in the next six months.

"From October 2015, every debit and credit card in the US will be replaced with new cards that contain the chip-and-PIN technology.  We believe this as a huge opportunity and are planning to explore this marker via joint venture partners," Shah said.

Paynear sources its mobile POS  card readers from Polland-based Miura Solutions, and supplies them to merchants for a one-time cost of Rs 3,000 and a monthly rental of Rs 400 per device. "Our idea is to have 100,000 such card reading devices in the Indian market in the next three years," she added.