PayinTech has raised €5.6M in total. We talked with Bertrand SYLVESTRE, its founder & CEO.
How would you describe PayinTech in a single tweet?
PayinTech is a SaaS platform designed to build and deploy last-mile payment ecosystems.
How did it all start and why?
We started with my co-founder Jean-Rémi Kouchakji a first company in the payment industry during our studies at HEC Paris. We had the conviction at that time that a lot of innovations regarding online payments had already been launched and that the future innovations were to happen in the “real world”, that is to say in the act of on-site payment, in purchasing at physical points of sales.
We started building a platform for last-mile payments based on NFC wearables, Android devices and an easy-to-use back office to manage flows and data. Main benefits for our B2B clients were on-site revenue increase and a better user experience.
We equipped a lot of events and festivals between 2013 and 2015. It allowed us to improve the transactional engine and to focus on two fast-growing markets: tourism facilities and leisure venues. We started collaborating with several well-known key accounts in the theme parks, resort chains and sports industries. Our platform now addresses the needs of all types of ecosystems in which traditional payment methods are not satisfying by recreating a last-mile payment ecosystem with an important added value.
To grow fast in a lot of countries and vertical markets, we adopted in 2019 an indirect distribution strategy. Our technology is now packaged, sold and delivered by Value Added Resellers in Europe, Africa, South East Asia and South America.
What have you achieved so far?
We proved the attractiveness of our solution by deploying our solution in more than 470 facilities (resorts, parks, stadiums, campsites, events…) in 17 countries.
We have a single SaaS platform which is composed of micro-services which can be integrated in the information systems of our customers (for example with point of sales, marketing & ERP softwares).
Our gross margin was 20% in 2017 and it is now 60%. Our SaaS revenues double each year.
What do you plan to achieve in the next 2-3 years?
Our ambition is to scale up to address more sectors and geographies through partnerships with local resellers.
We also want to contribute to development and have a positive social impact in the next 3 years: we have for example been collaborating since 2018 with a client to develop a cashless solution to facilitate financial flows management in Mali and Burkina Faso.
We want to become the worldwide standard for last-mile payment when traditional payment methods are not efficient.
In terms of innovation, we will intensify our R & D regarding innovative user identification and dynamic consumption models (automated reductions, cash-back…). We want to stay ahead of user experience and design new experiences around the way we pay and consume.
