Yoyo Wallet, the fastest growing mobile payments app in the UK, has raised £12m in a Series B investment round. Investors include German retailer Metro Group, and fund manager Neil Woodford.
The company’s latest funding also received backing from Touchstone Innovations, the AIM-listed venture capital arm of Imperial College London.
The company aim to use the money to finance expansion in Europe and the US.
The mobile app was created four years ago to provide a method for students to pay for goods within university student unions. It has since grown rapidly, and whilst gaining increasing success has reached a target of processing more than £1m payments monthly for its 400,000 registered users.
Using Yoyo’s services allows consumers to pay for goods using their mobile phone whilst keeping all their loyalty card schemes updated automatically. Companies can track consumer’s behaviour, and then generate personalised offers for them to view on the app. This stresses the ability to build a profile for each client according to their purchases, allowing businesses to use the app as a method of communication to better target their consumers.
The app currently handles payments in 1,700 outlets, facilitating unions in over 60 UK and Irish universities. Currently it has 60 staff, and revenue of up to tens of millions of pounds. Other clients who use Yoyo’s services to handle payments include JPMorgan Chase, Caffe Nero, and Planet Organic.
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“This new funding will allow us to provide the benefits of customer identification and mobile engagement to a wider array of retailers, large and small, in the UK and across Europe. We could not have found a better combination of Investors to support us through this next stage of growth” said Alain Falys, Co-Founder and CEO of Yoyo Wallet.
“Consumers are spending more than three hours a day on their smartphones and 40% buy more when subject to a personalised shopping experience. Yoyo simply provides all retailers with an accessible way of tapping into these behaviours.”
Hansjörg Sage, general Manager at Metro Group’s digital unit, commented on the recent deal saying: “Yoyo has convinced a growing number of customers to deploy its data-driven payment and loyalty marketing solutions, including most recently, Caffè Nero, the third largest coffee retail chain in the UK.
“With its strong track record of deploying digital technology at the customer interface, Yoyo’s solution can have a meaningful positive impact on a wide spectrum of retail businesses, in particular in the food and beverage segment. As digitisation becomes mainstream in hospitality, Yoyo’s technology is a strong candidate for currently untapped market segments.”
