United Kingdom — London-based FindBalloon said Monday it has raised £550,000 in fresh funding from Levartis Capital, as it looks to push into the rapidly growing mobile commerce industry.
The new investment round values FindBalloon at about £2.8 million, more than double its last private valuation of £1.3 million.
Serving a booming market
Founded by university classmates Julio Kosta and Anastasis Skoufos, FindBalloon is a tech start-up that uses proprietary image recognition technology to create a unique mobile-commerce services platform that revolutionises B2C sales, marketing, and advertising. This is done by introducing BalloonPay – a third-party payment solution facilitating transactions within seconds through image scanning, to create a seamless customer experience by removing all friction from customers purchasing products online.
Julio Kosta, the FindBalloon co-founder, and CEO says, “ FindBallon began when Anastasis and I realised that the process of marketing and shopping for products and services in our fast-paced digital world has become an arduous task as people are always on the move and cannot spare a minute in getting their shopping done as soon as they would love to. In the face of this challenge, we are in need of a solution that increases the conversion rate of advertising campaigns embarked on by companies and one that saves customers the hassle of the existing time-consuming online purchasing process which takes on average over 10 minutes. Hence, Findballoon was created with the goal of providing software that makes mobile shopping fun and effortless, ultimately improving the way people purchase goods online whilst revolutionising the way companies spread information and influence customers’ purchasing habits“.
In addition to its white label offering, FindBalloon will also offer its own set of Open APIs so that companies can create and manage their own user experience if they prefer. The company also intends to have several software offerings, including Tap to Phone, which co-founder Anastasis said “is seeing massive interest globally.”
Anastasis Skoufos, co-founder, and Managing Director says, “56% of all sales that are made online in the United Kingdom take place on either a smartphone or a tablet. Visits to online stores via these mobile devices currently account for almost half of the traffic. Mobile commerce sales in the three biggest e-commerce markets in Europe – the United Kingdom, France, and Germany – will reach over 85 billion pounds this year. It’s predicted that m-Commerce in the UK will be worth 48.6 billion Pounds at the end of this year, while mobile commerce retail in Germany is expected to reach 22.39 billion euros and m-commerce in France is forecasted to be worth about 14.32 billion euros in 2018. These figures demonstrate the great potential of this leading digital commerce segment”.
The company will use this fresh funding to grow its workforce and accelerate its mission of creating a wallet-free living within a cashless society. The tech start-up currently employs 11 but plans to grow to over 30 within the next two years!
With its growing team, FindBalloon promises to help companies that want to create and/or scale a payment acceptance business “an unmatched time to market” and the possibility of, under the white label modality, integrating all functions — from the acceptance of all payment methods to the visualisation of all transactions, regardless of the method of payment that has been used to collect.