South African payments startup i-Pay has secured funding from venture capital firm Kalon Venture Partners to scale and expand its operations.
Kalon Venture Partners said the investment in i-Pay, which facilitates bank-to-bank automated and instant electronic funds transfers (EFTs) in a matter of seconds, will help the startup expand its offering into multiple countries across the globe.
“Globally, many traditional ways of doing banking are being challenged and i-Pay is a true innovator in this space – in our view the company is at least 10 times better than any other EFT company we’ve seen. We are delighted to have concluded this transaction and are looking forward to seeing the firm’s potential realised,” said Kalon’s chief executive officer (CEO) Clive Butkow.
The i-Pay instant payment system was launched in November 2014 by Thomas Pays, Mitchan Adams and Lyle Eckstein, who had identified a need for an efficient and secure online payment system in the local market.
“As innovators, we have consistently been passionate about developing cutting edge products and services that will both disrupt and benefit the local populace. In this regard, we realised there had to be a more frictionless and safer ways of facilitating online payments,” Pays said.
“While we viewed EFTs as a much safer payment mechanism for consumers, the main drawback with EFTs was the lengthy and inefficient process that needed to be undertaken in making a payment. We decided to develop the concept of automated bank-to-bank transfers and our goal was for this to happen within a few seconds, thus removing the administrative burden often faced by consumers when effecting an EFT manually.”
He said the startup had met with some hurdles and opposition along the journey, but had produced software that has proven to be marketable as a payment mechanism in the global space.
“The investment of Kalon Venture Partners thus has the positive effect of accelerating i-Pay’s expansion into key markets across the globe,” Pays said.
