Mobile payments aren’t strictly an American enterprise, as we’re seeing with pushes to bring mobile wallet and mobile payment systems to every corner of the world.
MobiKwik has been making a big push on the Indian market, as smartphone ownership numbers climb and make opportunity for firms to get in.
A recently-concluded Series C round demonstrates just how far the market is going, with the company landing $50 million in the process.
MobiKwik’s range of services go beyond the mobile wallet, offering bill payment services, money transfers, recharges for mobile phone time, tickets and more.
With over 30 million users to its credit at last report, along with over 75,000 retailers’ worth of support, MobiKwik seems to have clear support in the market.
Of particular note here was just who put investment into MobiKwik this time around; GMO, a Japanese Internet firm, along with a semiconductor specialist in Mediatek.
These were the leaders in the funding round, and joining them were a set of current investors including Treeline Asia and Sequoia.
The new influx of funding brings MobiKwik up to better than $80 million in capital raised so far.
That impressive figure, however, pales against some of the other firms in the region, like Ant Financial, an Alibaba-connected firm that brought in fully $4.5 billion in funding.
MobiKwik has some clear examples going into a fight with Paytm et al; the total amount of cash passing through its system has been on the rise, growing 250 percent a year since 2012.
Most of its users make between 10 and 12 transactions a month. This sounds like good news, but news that’s only cause for cautious optimism.
After all, a 250 percent growth rate sounds great, until you start the total off at $50. Then it sounds like a recipe for a lot of lost investment.
It’s hard to fault MobiKwik’s ambitions, though; it’s planning to reach 150 million average users along with taking in $5 billion a year.
It’s going to have a lot of hurdles getting there, like a lot of competition and a softening global economy. Though it’ll have a fight on its hands, MobiKwik may have the ambition—and the resources—to hit its targets.
