Ollie Mahoney and Richard Carter/Lopay
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Instant payment fintech Lopay secures £6m to rival SumUp
Boasting instant payments and lower processing fees, the startup says it expects to process £500m in card payments in the next 12 months
Instant payment startup Lopay has raised £6m in seed funding after signing up more than 20,000 small businesses in 18 months.
The fintech secured funds from BackedVC, Portage, the Venture Collective and a number of angel investors.
CEO Richard Carter co-founded Lopay alongside chief technology officer Ollie Mahoney in January 2022 with the pitch to small businesses: “Keep more of the money you make”.
Collectively, customers have used Lopay to take almost 10 million customer payments.
“Lopay’s mission has resonated with thousands of small businesses and sole traders who are being squeezed simultaneously by high inflation and fragile customer demand,” Carter said.
“Against that backdrop, the big beasts of the card payment industry have been poor champions of small business. Their high fees mean too many small firms are paying up to 300 per cent more than they need to — or waiting up to three business days — to receive card payments from their customers.”
By contrast, Carter said, Lopay’s app and card reader enable SMEs to take card payments at a “fraction of the cost” charged by corporate payment providers. Users can also receive cleared funds instantly.
Lopay says its low fees — less than a third of those charged by PayPal and half those by SumUp and Zettle — are key to its rapid growth.
“Since launch, we’ve focused on building robust financial architecture and hiring a talented, committed team,” Carter continued.
“With this solid platform for growth, we’re now ready to scale — and we’ll be using this major injection of seed capital to launch internationally and develop new products that save small businesses even more money.”
Portage co-led the funding round alongside Backed VC.
“Lopay is breaking new ground in the archaic mobile POS payment industry, saving thousands of small businesses time and money as they navigate the post-pandemic business landscape,” Portage principal Juliette Souliman said.
According to Lopay, it is set to process more than £400m in payments in 2023 and expects to process a further £500m in card payments over the next 12 months.
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