"Mobile electronic payments are the way of the future in India. PayMate has figured out how to unleash the potential of the phone as the primary transaction terminal for the over 260 million mobile users in India," said Nikhil Khattau, MD of Mayfield Advisors, who also join the PayMate board.
PayMate works with service providers like airlines, banks to enable transactions on mobile phones and wireless devices. Customers can buy an air ticket by sending an SMS and pay by credit card through a secure IVRS call-back service.
"It's still early days for mobile commerce; it's not as pervasive as a credit card or debit card but growing fast. But with increasing awareness of mobile as a device, it will grow at 30-35 per cent. The capital will help us fund our growth for the next 18-24 months,'' said PayMate's director and co-founder Probir Roy.
In July 2006, Sherpalo Ventures and Kleiner Perkins had invested $5 million in PayMate. PayMate's promoters