MyCheck has received a $5M investment from Santander Innoventures Fund in return for an equity stake in the business. The investment kicks-off MyCheck’s Series B funding round. The venture will allow Santander’s retail and commercial customers around the world to benefit from MyCheck’s innovative technology that allows users to check into venues, pay securely, and receive relevant offers and information from their smart device.
MyCheck, founded in Israel in 2011, is reinventing the payment experience in hospitality by focusing on Point-of-Sale integration and user experience to increase customer engagement and consumer satisfaction. According to Santander, the company has seen 320% growth in transaction volumes in the last six months after shifting to a technology platform approach, focusing entirely on enabling the payment experience in private label apps for restaurant groups and chains, and providing “MyCheck Inside” capabilities to other app providers that want to reach the hospitality market. The funds from Santander will be used to accelerate MyCheck’s international expansion, especially across the U.S and Western Europe, bolster sales and marketing, and enhance business intelligence capabilities. As part of the deal, MyCheck will be able to leverage Santander’s expertise and scale, reaching over 107 million retail and commercial customers across ten main markets in Europe and the Americas.
The investment highlights Santander’s philosophy of collaboration and partnership with small and startup companies and strengthens Santander’s position as an enabler for the pioneers of financial technology. MyCheck will become part of a network of trusted partners who work together with Santander to address customer needs, while continuing to build Santander’s growing global digital offering.
Mariano Belinky, Managing Director of the Santander Innoventures Fund, said: “We established the Innoventures Fund to support startup Fintech companies who are at the cutting edge of digital delivery of financial services and in MyCheck we have found this. The investment in MyCheck highlights our leadership in financial technology, investing in services which seek to benefit customers in their everyday financial transactions.”
Shlomit Kugler, Co-Founder and CEO of MyCheck, said: “Santander is an ideal investor and partner for MyCheck. The company shares our vision and our passion for financial technology that improves the lives of people and helps businesses and economies to grow. We have already secured hundreds of thousands of users. With Santander’s support we can scale rapidly and capitalise on our leadership position in the hospitality sector. This investment is a validation of MyCheck’s market proposition, its business model, its technology and its people. We’re proud to have this vote of confidence from Santander and be the first to receive an investment from their Innoventures Fund.”
The Santander Innoventures Fund (formerly the Fintech Fund) was launched in July 2014. Based in London, but with a global remit, the Fund builds on the bank’s philosophy of collaboration and partnership with small and start-up companies. The Fund provides Fin-Tech companies with much needed finance, as well as supporting the digital revolution to ensure Santander’s customers world-wide benefit from the latest know-how and innovations across the Banking Group’s Geographies.
The Fund is 100 per cent owned by Santander UK, but is a self-standing, specialised, organisation, fully dedicated to the remit of supporting Fin-Tech companies worldwide. The primary focus is on:
· Digital Delivery of Financial Services – aimed at reinforcing distribution and the overall customer experience in the new digital environment’
· E-commerce and Payments ventures;
· Online lending – Ventures using new data sources to provide better access to credit, including crowd and social funding;
· E-Financial investments – online systems to distribute financial investment products with self-service and planning capabilities organised around the lifecycle; and,
· Big Data Analytics – platforms to leverage financial and not financial information to provide better services to our customers