Ingogo seemed to be the best thing to happen to Australian taxis since… the taxi. And with its recent announcement of an additional $9.1 million raised, it’d be interesting to see how big this mobile payment platform and taxi app can be.
The additional funding in the pre-IPO funding round means that Ingogo is now valued at over $45 million, and the total capital raised by the company is $16.2 million.
From taxis to VSEs, SMEs, and just maybe, a listing on the ASX.
The new investment will allow Ingogo to expand its services beyond the taxi industry and help launch a mobile payment platform for VSEs and SMEs in partnership with cloud accounting software Xero. Not only that, the injection of new funds would help the company prepare for an intended listing on the ASX in the first half of 2015.
Ingogo launched the world’s first app-based payment platform in October 2013, providing wireless terminals in taxis to process payments from multiple sources including eftpos and credit cards. The new partnership with Xero will allow small business owners, such as tradesmen, direct sales people, and small product enterprises to process payments immediately from customers on site, using Bluetooth technology connecting ingogo’s app to a very small portable payment terminal.
What’s so attractive about the service is that it would have no monthly terminal rental fees, and will allow businesses to process new transactions or to take payments from existing invoices, using their phone or tablet. Next day payment settlements 365 days a year, and automatically generated and sent Xero invoices sound like music to the ears as businesses can dramatically reduce the amount of manual input involved.
Investor Craig Winkler commented: “Payment systems are often complex and expensive. By proving their system in one of the hardest environments around (in taxis), ingogo now have a great offering to make life easier for small-medium business owners. That’s worth cheering.”
New funds, new investors and even new members on board
The latest funding round brings on-board new investors, including Craig Winkler, co-Founder MYOB and a significant investor in Xero, and Chris Lee, co-founder MYOB, Melbourne Family offices, Pitt Capital, John Ho (Janchor Partners an Asian equity focused hedge fund) and a number of Australian and Asian Institutional Funds. The round is also the first deal for VentureCrowd, the equity-based crowd-funding platform powered by Artesian Venture Partners, which is contributing $1.2 million from almost 50 pre-qualified individual investors.
In addition, Ingogo also welcomes three new high-profile members to its board including Martin Dalgleish as Chairman, Brad Shofer as Non-Executive Director, and Naseema Sparks as Non-Executive Director.
Founder and managing director of ingogo, Hamish Petrie, said: “This funding is a significant step for ingogo, and we are proud to show that funding rounds at this level can be done here in Australia. We are also excited about the appointment of extremely high calibre directors to our board. Both Martin Dalgleish and Brad Shofer are key investors in the ingogo business who bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the team. Naseema Sparks’ in-depth marketing and leadership expertise will be also be of huge value.”
Ingogo’s all set to go
Based on the past month’s trading, ingogo is processing an annual equivalent of more than $100million in taxi payments, which is apparently about 10% of the incumbent Cabcharge’s payment volume annually.
“We’re taking a decent chunk away from Cabcharge’s payment turnover and are now at least 10% of theirs and growing. We are set to process well in excess of $150million in the next year,” Petrie commented.
The beta for the Xero payment integration will be launched by the end of October with a full commercial version set to launch in early 2015.
Image Source: startupdaily.com.au
