American Express Co has bought a minority stake in Bangalore-based payment device maker Ezetap Mobile Solutions. Ezetap had received venture funding of Rs 49.8 crore from a consortium of investors led by venture fund Helion Venture Partners about a month ago. The American Express investment is a validation about what the company is doing and the potential of the market, said Abhijit Bose, cofounder of Ezetap which converts any mobile device into point of sale device. Bose said the funding will allow the company to introduce additional value added services like loyalty points and rewards for consumers. The company has currently deployed 12,000 PoS devices across South East Asia and Africa. American Express’ investment arm American Express Ventures had also invested $4.5 million in the Bangalore-based customer engagement company Capillary Technologies last month. In January, Ezetap had partnered with Citibank to launch a mobile payment solution for merchants targeting credit and debit card holders in India. It had also partnered Kenya’s largest bank Equity Bank and MasterCard to expand operations to Kenya in March 2013.
