U.S. Bancorp subsidiary Elavon and National Australia Bank (NAB) have participated in the $100m Series C for Poynt, bringing the company’s total funding to $133m.
Image: Poynt OS is an open operating system that can power any smart payment terminal worldwide. Photo: courtesy of blackzheep / FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
Poynt said it will use the investment to expand its operations in new markets across Asia, Europe and South America.
The firm is planning to expand its talent base, invest in product and partner development, as part of its efforts to become the operating system (OS) on smart payment terminals across the globe.
The company noted that it recognized the lack of smart terminals in the market in 2013, and re-imagined the ubiquitous payment terminal into a connected, multi-purpose device that runs third-party apps.
As per the World Bank, the global world product is expected to cross $85 trillion this year, including more than $22 trillion from payment cards.
Poynt OS is an open operating system, which can support any smart payment terminal across the globe. It is said to create a new app economy for merchants by enabling developers to write once and distribute everywhere.
Based on Android, Poynt OS is hardware-agnostic and plugs into new and legacy retail software systems, helping merchants to expand their capabilities with third party and custom apps.
Poynt noted that its OS is expected to be used by least half of the world’s top payment terminal manufacturers in 2019.
Poynt founder and CEO Osama Bedier said: “Smartphones changed the way we search, buy and communicate — not only because the hardware was beautiful, but because iOS and Android transformed a ubiquitous utility into a platform for innovation where developers could build once and distribute everywhere.
“We give developers a technical canvas to build the experiences merchants and their customers have come to expect – and ultimately, make visiting your local store the personal experience it was always meant to be.”
Poynt has developed a payment terminal, which can be used as a connected multi-purpose device that runs on an open platform.
The firm has signed agreements with global banks such as Elavon, Evertec, Worldpay, J.P. Morgan Chase, Itau Unibanco, Alipay, Nexi, EVO, and Mashreq Bank.
At present, around 8,000 developers are based on Poynt, including Boomtown, Homebase, MindBody, Talech and TruRating.
Based in Palo Alto, California, Poynt is supported by Elavon, Google Ventures, Matrix Partners, National Australia Bank, NYCA Partners, Oak HC/FT Partners, Stanford-StartX Fund, and Webb Investment Network.