{"id":39802,"date":"2023-10-20T15:04:33","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:04:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/promisepay-locks-in-more-than-2-million-in-funding-from-the-likes-of-99designs-mark-harbottle-and-westpacs-reinventure-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:04:33","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:04:33","slug":"promisepay-locks-in-more-than-2-million-in-funding-from-the-likes-of-99designs-mark-harbottle-and-westpacs-reinventure-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/promisepay-locks-in-more-than-2-million-in-funding-from-the-likes-of-99designs-mark-harbottle-and-westpacs-reinventure-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"PromisePay locks in more than $2 million in funding from the likes of 99design\u2019s Mark Harbottle and Westpac\u2019s Reinventure – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Secure payments platform PromisePay has closed a $2.59 million funding round in order to roll out new features and snap up new employees.<\/p>\n

The round was led by US venture capital firm Cultivation Capital, with participation from 99designs co-founder Mark Harbottle, rampersand and Westpac-backed VC fund Reinventure.<\/p>\n

The startup, which has offices in Melbourne and the US, provides marketplace operators with a payment solution as well as fraud management.<\/p>\n

PromisePay co-founder and chief executive, Simon Lee, told StartupSmart security is a \u201cmassive issue\u201d for online marketplaces.<\/p>\n

He says the capital injection \u2013 which was signed off a few months ago \u2013 only serves to reinforce this idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have some pretty large contracts that we\u2019re in the process of executing, so really it\u2019s about just getting the money to those marketplaces we want to go live with and also prepare for a Series A,\u201d Lee says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a place in San Francisco at the moment and we\u2019ve got a couple of guys there. Obviously in Melbourne as well we\u2019ve been lucky with Mark Harbottle from 99Designs being an early customer and investor\u2026 it\u2019s a really good testament to Aussie startups backing other Aussie startups and allowing them to have a go.\u201d<\/p>\n

The raise has allowed the company to expand from six to fifteen employees over the past three months. Lee says he hopes to grow the team to around 30 in the next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a team of 15 now, so we\u2019ve got four payments guys from some of the big four banks already,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll also always keep our development in Melbourne because of the R&D tax grant \u2013 that\u2019s been a big help. We\u2019ve got six developers now, but we\u2019ll probably hire one or two more over the next year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee says it is promising to see a major bank like Westpac pay attention to fintech startups through its independent venture capital firm. PromisePay hopes to close a Series A round mid next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really good to have someone like Reinventure [Westpac\u2019s VC arm] backing you, because it means when you go to talk to some very significant marketplaces at least we can say we\u2019re backed by Reinventure,\u201d Lee says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gives us some weight. It\u2019s not about this round, it\u2019s about the big round we\u2019ll do next year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark Harbottle said in a statement he participated in the funding round because over time he has come to know \u201cthe team and product intimately\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love investing in great teams with great products that solve problems that we have in our own businesses, so when the opportunity to get more involved in PromisePay came up, it definitely ticked all the boxes for me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Do you know more on this story or have a tip of your own? Raising capital or launching a startup? <\/i>Let us know<\/i><\/a>. Follow StartupSmart on <\/i>Facebook<\/i><\/a>, <\/i>Twitter<\/i><\/a>, and <\/i>LinkedIn<\/i><\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Secure payments platform PromisePay has closed a $2.59 million funding round in order to roll out new features and snap<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,3,4,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39802"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}