Mobile bill payment application Papaya has raised a $50 million in a Series B funding round led by Bessemer Venture Partners.
Based in Sherman Oaks, Papaya lets users take photos of bills (i.e., phone bills, utilities, parking tickets) and then choose how to pay over the phone or on web portals.
Papaya said the mobile transaction system helps businesses, governments and municipalities get paid faster and more often. The company integrates with partners’ billing processes through paper statements and embedded widget technologies.
“American families’ greatest source of stress and anxiety is finances,” Patrick Kann, Papaya’s chief executive, said in a statement. “With a user-friendly app and single photo of a bill, Papaya’s technology eases that pain point.”
The $50 million will pay to expand the company’s payroll, form partnerships and continue to build out the technology, the company said in a statement.
Kann has experience in banking through stints at the World Bank and IdeaLab. He co-founded Papaya alongside Chief Technology Officer Jason Meltzer, who led development for the computer vision technology behind iRobot’s autonomous robot vacuum, the Roomba.
“Patrick and Jason have built the technology and assembled an extraordinary, mission-driven team to reshape the bill payment process and empower businesses and consumers to operate with a new level of efficiency and sophistication,” Charles Birnbaum, a partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, said in a statement.
In addition to Bessemer, participants in the round included Sequoia Capital, Acrew Capital, 01 Advisors, Mucker Capital, Fika Ventures, F-Prime and Sound Ventures.