Obopay, the Redwood City, Calif. company that lets you send payments to people from a mobile phone, has raised $29 million more in a third round of funding.
The service launched last year, and it’s not clear how much traction it has. The funding announcement was made quietly, after the fact (see wording), quite low-key given the intense competition the company is facing in mobile payments. There are at least eight other players, ranging from Google and PayPal, to smaller players like Kushcash (coverage here), Paymate (coverage here), Danal, PaymentOne, Payoneer and Vivotech (all covered or mentioned here). Granted, they each have their own strategy and focus.
We previously wrote about the company here, mentioning its BREW technology. It previously raised $17 million
Richmond Global Cellular led the round, which included AllianceBernstein L.P., Citi, Societe Generale and others. Previous investors Qualcomm and Redpoint Ventures also participated, the company said.
In May, Google Checkout announced its support of mobile payments. Last month, PayPal launched its mobile payment version, however only announcing it officially this Tuesday (see eweek article).
Tags: co:Obopay, deal, inv:Citi, inv:Qualcomm, inv:Redpoint, inv:Richmond-Global-cellular, inv:Societe-Generale, invAllianceBernstein5 Comments
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Dave said:
payoneer is not a mobile payments company…they are a prepaid company.
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Chris T. said:
I’ve seen the books at Obopay, its not pretty…I can’t believe they raised that kind of capital. Payjr (www.payjr.com) and Netspend (www.netspend.com) have a much better chance of winning the mobile payments game than Obopay but you really don’t even need the capability with the latest cell phone technology.
By the way, the companies you mention all serve different needs in the payments space. Vivotech is providing soft wallets and NFC technology for cellphone - enabling a phone to replace plastic basically. Obopay is nothing more than a prepaid card that can be accessed via a mobile phone (pretty simple technology). PaymentOne - allows companies to converge their bills/fees with an existing phone bill.
They have no relation what so ever.
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NR said:
Obopay’s copied biz model is not working. How many active users do they have? 10K? even 1K?
Redpoint Ventures blew millions on failed Amp’d mobile. Obopay is on the same track.
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