Silicon Valley-based Vivotech, an infrastructure provider for contactless and near field communication (NFC) mobile payments and promotions, has closed an $8.6 million extension to its series C round of funding from its existing investors, bringing the total investment in its series C round to more than $40 million.
The company's current investors include Citi, Motorola, NCR and First Data.
“By making such a significant investment in these difficult times our investors continue to demonstrate their belief and commitment in the vision of contactless and mobile payments and promotions, and their continued trust that Vivotech is the company that can best execute and deliver on this vision”, said Michael Mullagh, Vivotech CEO.
“This funding will provide the foundation for Vivotech to continue to maintain its market leadership in enabling contactless and NFC payment acceptance at tens of millions of merchant locations worldwide, and to implement its unique patented over-the-air card provisioning, mobile payments and promotion infrastructure software for the commercialization of NFC based mobile payments and marketing which we expect to see gain significant momentum in 2010.”
Near Field Communication (NFC) technology broadens the use of mobile devices by enabling interactivity with contactless payment systems at the point-of-sale, ATMs and kiosks. Applications for the technology that are being planned or piloted include: in-store real time personalised loyalty, coupon and promotion programs, user authentication for self service check-in at airlines and hotels, and more secure ATM transactions.
“Billions of phones and cards can be enabled with these new applications at tens of millions of locations” Mullagh added. “Vivotech, through its comprehensive contactless and NFC technology, and Vivotech ’s investors, through their financial support and market insight, are together pioneering these applications to take advantage of the huge opportunities ahead”.