Payments company Ayopop raises $1m seed funding

Ayopop’s Android app. Photo credit: Ayopop.

Indonesia’s Ayopop specializes in bill payments, which means it wants users to pay for things like their phone bills, electricity, and internet services through its app.

Ayopop launched about a year ago and has been angel funded so far, with some investment from venture capital firm Gree Ventures.

Today, the app’s co-founders Chiragh Kirpalani and Jakob Rost announced they’ve locked in a US$1 million seed round. Gree Ventures led the round and was joined by additional angel investors. The VC firm tells Tech in Asia that Sandeep Tandon – one of the co-founders of India’s FreeCharge, advises the startup.

Users create a profile on Ayopop, load credit onto their account via credit card, bank transfer, or a number of other payment options, and can then spend that amount on various services.

Ayopop takes a commission on each transaction.

Chiragh claims the app has been “gaining strong traction over the last months,” but did not disclose any numbers like the number of transactions facilitated.

Its Android app currently has between 50,000 and 100,000 downloads, according to AppAnnie data, and sits on rank 41 of apps in the lifestyle category on Indonesia’s Play Store.

Ayopop’s range of products and services on offer is quite broad, starting from the already mentioned mobile credit top-ups to more recent types of digital services like on-demand video. It also has cash back deals on certain products – which means users can earn Ayopop credit back after they’ve made a purchase.

The app itself still has some kinks – for instance, my SMS verification code did not come through during the registration process and the text sports several typos and a mix of Indonesian and English in its Indonesian language version.

Some users also complained about slow transaction times on the app’s review page.

In some recent reviews, users complain about having to wait for a long time until their transaction goes through.

With fresh funding at hand, the team should be working to sort this out. Ayopop currently has a staff of 30, Chiragh says.

Everyone’s in payments