Mobile point of sale venture Softpay gets $1m Series A from fintech VC Life.SREDA

DealStreetAsia: Southeast Asian mobile point of sale (MPOS) venture SoftPay Mobile International, which is incorporated in Singapore but operates in Vietnam, has secured a $1-million Series A investment round led by Singapore-based fintech VC firm Life.SREDA, via their InspirAsia Accelerator.

A second unnamed investor also participated in the round alongside Life.SREDA, which according to a release places their valuation at “double digit millions”.

Often referred to as the ‘Square of Southeast Asia’, it was launched in early 2015 by a pan-Asian team comprising serial and highly experienced entrepreneurs.

This investment marks Life.SREDA’s third this month. In October, it has invested in a venture round in Mobikon Asia and led a Series B investment in Lenddo.

The core of SoftPay’s technology is its MPOS reader, which enables businesses to effectively and seamlessly accept credit and debit card payments, mitigating the need for complex payment gateways. In a release, the venture claimed to have “…deployed thousands of MPOS readers to thousands of businesses”.

SoftPay Mobile is targeted at providing mobile payment solutions for large companies like Mai Linh Taxi (the largest taxi company in Vietnam) with the ability to process credit and debit cards, in addition to providing turn-key MPOS solutions to SMEs.

In addition to processing card payments, merchants can use SoftPay Mobile’s Value Added Services such as POS software to aid sales management of their products and services. Their next target markets are Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Softpay Mobile co-founder Christopher Low, who serves as its CEO, said, “This recent funding by our investors validates the technical excellence of our MPOS solution and tremendous growth achieved since early 2015. This funding will allow SoftPay Mobile to accelerate our vision to be the number one mobile payment company in SE Asia.”

Adding that they would be using the fund for regional expansion and talent acquisition, Low stated: “We are excited to have our investors onboard and look forward to growing SoftPay Mobile to be the leading MPOS and mobile payment company in Southeast Asia.”

Since launching earlier this year, SoftPay Mobile has achieved a 30x growth in month-on-month processing volume from the period of April 2015 till September 2015. An acquisitive growth strategy is also being explored, in terms of acquiring similar MPOS firms to accelerate market expansion.

SoftPay Mobile is targeting at least 500 per cent growth in 2016 by aiming to deploy its products and be operational in at least four Southeast Asia countries by next year.

Life.SREDA’s partner and investment director, Igor Pesin said, “We believe mPOS is one of the most promising areas in fintech. It is a necessary sector in any fintech ecosystem.  Between mPOS companies in SEA, SoftPay Mobile has one of the most experienced teams. They have already built and launched great products and proven that they can effectively acquire and keep small and big merchants.”

Read more on the topic: TechInAsia, E27.CO