Florida-based startup Play2Pay closed an oversubscribed $13m Series A funding round led by Telesoft Partners with participation from Harbor Spring Capital.
Individual investors including former AT&T vice chairman Ralph de la Vega, former Reuters CEO Tom Glocer, Madison Dearborn Partners co-founder and senior advisor Jim Perry, and Virtusa founder and former CEO, Kris Canekeratne also participated.
The new capital will fuel the company’s rapid global expansion by accelerating product development, hiring and partner engagement.
Founded by Brian Boroff in 2015, Play2Pay built an alternative payment platform that converts consumer’s attention and engagement with brands into a currency that can be redeemed for bill payments. The trade off is brands get a new way to promote their products and services, game developers get new users and videos get views — all of which equate to success for these companies.
According to Play2Pay, the tech can reduce user bills by an average of 30% simply through games, videos, daily challenges, surveys etc. Nearly 30% of users earn enough each month to receive a free monthly service. Play2Pay’s offers are opt-in, easy to engage with and secure, GDPR- and CCPA-compliant. The platform is free for service providers and merchants, meaning the payment does not have costs or fees from interchange, acquirers, chargebacks or gateways.
It has continued to grow its offerings and expand via acquisitions. In January, Play2Pay acquired New Zealand competitor Postr, and has previously raised $7.5m in June 2020. The company recently added new streaks and challenges features, allowing users to be rewarded for consecutive playing and to earn recognition with additional currency.
The pandemic proved to be profitable for the firm as revenue increased almost 300% over the past year. Play2Pay helped carriers including AT&T, Cricket, Indosat and others realize up to 17% revenue expansion as a result of subscriber engagement on the platform.
Boroff said, “Not only did our partners see 25% of Play2Pay users generating revenue daily on the platform, we offered our brand and service provider partners a new level of data and analytics that allowed them to customize offerings and strengthen customer relationships. We are growing thoughtfully and are excited about the potential of Play2Pay’s platform for financial services and e-commerce, as well as utility, cable and internet.”
The international “opt-in” offering is currently available to more than 100 million mobile subscribers across the United States, United Kingdom, Mexico, Brazil and Indonesia.
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