Atlanta-based payment processing company ConnexPay raised a $6.1 million Series A extension led by F-Prime Capital.
ConnexPay, which was founded in 2017, aims to streamline payments in the travel industry by using one platform to process payments from the consumer to the travel company and the travel company to the hospitality company.
“Prior to ConnexPay, those are typically three different companies they would need to work with and integrate their technology into,” said CEO Bob Kaufman. “ConnexPay puts all of those three things into one.”
F-Prime Capital is a Boston-based health care and technology venture capital firm affiliated with FMR LLC. Atlanta-based BIP Capital also backs ConnexPay.
The Series A extension brings the company’s total investments to $15 million, according to a Dec. 1 press release. The funding will be used to enhance the company’s payment technology, such as allowing payments with Google or Apply Pay, and branch into other industries that have intermediaries, such as insurance or entertainment ticket brokers.
The company has 27 employees and expects to add nine more in the first half of 2021 for sales and core operations, Kaufman said.
Despite the drop in travel over the past year, Kaufman said the COVID-19 pandemic has made ConnexPay more necessary for companies and consumers.
Kaufman said travel companies booking hotels for people may take their money and use it for something else before actually paying the hotel. That process makes it more difficult for people to get their money back if they need to cancel their trip and get a refund.
With ConnexPay, Kaufman said there’s more transparency in the payment process because the platform moves a person’s money more directly through the travel company and to the hotel or airline.
“In the ConnexPay model, because we are on both sides of the payment stream, we don’t give the funds to the travel agency until we know the trip is paid for,” Kaufman said. “It’s a safer way for consumers.”
Kaufman said the company has signed more clients in the past three months than all of 2019 as travel companies have taken the lack of business to make their processes more efficient.
Between April and September, Kaufman said the company’s revenue was down from what was expected before the pandemic. But ConnexPay is processing the same amount money now as before the pandemic, which makes the company positioned to have a flat year-over-year revenue growth from 2019.
