Taxi app startup ingogo has raised another $3.4 million as it pivots into a mobile payments.
The company was valued at $25 million in its latest funding around that was announced today. In total, ingogo has now raised $7.1 million in capital. Investors include the UBS Australian Small Companies Fund, the Wilbow Group and private investors from Asia and the US.
The startup plans to use the funding to expand its mobile payment terminals to “thousands of taxi drivers across Australia” and seek customers in new industries including small merchants.
It also plans to list on the ASX in 2014 and will double its staff to more than 25 employees. Founder Hamish Petrie said this funding round will be the last needed for the startup to get to positive operating cash flow.
The payment terminals were announced by ingogo in October and developed in partnership with ANZ bank and payment provider Ingenico. In addition to processing payments from the ingogo mobile app, the terminals let passengers pay directly with all their major credit cards, using contactless, EFTPOS chip & PIN, magstripe and virtual wallets.
While initially deployed in cabs, ingogo is now looking to sell the terminals to other industries, said Petrie.
“The payment system solves a range of complex issues that also correspond to other mobile payment environments and given that taxis are one of the toughest payment spaces and we’ve cracked the market – our pilot group successfully processed several million dollars of payments last month – we see huge potential for the ingogo platform within new industries.”
The cash injection closely follows another funding round completed in August when ingogo raised $1 million.
Taxi app startups have had a successful 2013 raising money despite resistance from Cabcharge and taxi dispatchers.
Uber, a major international competitor that recently entered Australia, this year closed a $258 million financing round including funding from Google. And GoCatch, a Sydney-based startup, has recently announced $3 million in its latest investment round.
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