Payments giant Visa is doubling down on one of Cincinnati's most notable startups.
Audio startup Lisnr, whose technology allows for mobile payments using sound, announced this week Visa has once again invested an undisclosed sum in the Over-the-Rhine startup.
The new investment comes roughly one year after Visa first invested in Lisnr's Series C round. But the companies' relationship dates back even further to 2015, when Lisnr won Visa's Everywhere Initiative to find the future of mobile payments.
Lisnr, founded in 2012, has created technology that allows it to transmit data quickly and securely using ultrasonic tones. It works like a key that is randomly generated, tied uniquely to the person who is holding it and disappears immediately after it's used. The company's biggest initiative centers on contactless payments that work from a distance — which its leaders believe creates limitless possibilities for the company in a post-Covid world.
"The pandemic has accelerated the need for safe and secure authentication solutions at a distance," Lisnr CEO Eric Allen said in a statement. "Lisnr’s contactless, data-over-audio technology, is proving to be an invaluable solution to an authentication problem across many different commerce experiences. The incumbent market solution, the QR code, has seen its adoption spike as it is expected to surpass $4.4 trillion processed in 2020. The fact that we can do what a QR code does at regulated, safe distances leaves us in a very promising position to go after that growing addressable market."
