Canada-based company providing integrated payment technology Paystone closed a $23.8m round from Crédit Mutuel Equity, the private equity arm of Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale, one of France’s leading financial institutions.
The company plans to use the funding to continue supporting Paystone’s expansion efforts and improve its payment and customer engagement platform. Paystone entered the US in 2021 and currently has over 100 employees.
Founded in 2008 as Zomaron, the company rebranded as Paystone in 2019 and offers an integrated suite of automated payment processing, customer loyalty and gift card solutions to businesses. Current customers including Irving Oil, The Source, Booster Juice, Global Pet Foods and Kernels Popcorn.
Paystone CEO Tarique Al-Ansari stated, “Winning more customers is a universal need among businesses of all sizes, and our integrated platform that seamlessly combines electronic payments acceptance with customer growth tools is the first of its kind in the market.”
Rather than getting a reward for spending, Paystone rewards for behaviour. Refer a friend, get a reward. Write a review, get a reward. Al-Ansari calls it “payments as a benefit.” Referrals and reviews are how businesses become more findable, and the more content that’s out there, the more it helps people consider the business trustworthy, he added.
Instead of focusing on online presence and digital marketing, many of Paystone’s customers need to have content that is easily findable by potential users and need to show why clients should do business with them.
The investment follows Paystone’s $54.5m private equity fundraise round in January, bringing the company’s total funding to $78.3m. In addition to the funding, Paystone has completed five acquisitions in the past 18 months, including DataCandy, Swift Payments, POS West Ltd. and NXGEN Canada.
The company currently processes about $6bn in credit card payments and is on track to bring in over $55m in revenue in 2021.
This year, Paystone entered the U.S. market for the first time. The company has over 30,000 merchant locations on its platform throughout North America, and Al-Ansari expects that to grow by 5,000 this year. The company has 150 employees currently, and another 50 are expected to come on board by the end of the year.
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