Brief

Sherpalo and KPCB invest $ 5 million in Paymate

Sherpalo Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), two of Silicon Valley’s venture capital firms, announced their investment of $5 million in Paymate, a global wireless technology solutions provider in mobile commerce.

Paymate is Sherpalo & KPCB’s third investment in India after Naukri and Cleartrip. Ram Shriram of Sherpalo Ventures said, “India is a huge domestic market with a growing Internet and mobile user base. We are excited about the opportunity to help build new businesses that effectively address the market needs and are focussed on working with top management teams to build great companies.”

Ajit Nazre of KPCB said, “Mobile phones in India do what the computers in the West do. Paymate is an exceptional company that has created a unique ecosystem with key banks, merchants and technology enablers to enable a ubiquitous and scalable mobile commerce solution.”

Sandeep Murthy, Partner, Sherpalo Ventures, and India representative, KPCB felt, “With the rapid proliferation of mobile phones, the wireless space offers great opportunities to create a new payment paradigm and Paymate is well positioned to capitalise on this opportunity.”

Paymate, founded by Ajay Adiseshann, formerly the CEO of Coruscant Tec (a mobile value-added services company), and Probir Roy, formerly CIO of Star TV and Co-Founder, Coruscant Tec, is just three months old. The company has Alex Kuruvilla, the former head of MTV in India, as one of its advisors.

Adiseshann, CEO, Paymate said, “Sherpalo and KPCB’s investment is a validation of our vision. More importantly the knowledge and experience that these investors bring will help us scale our business.” He said that the funding is for operations and scaling of the business.