Zeller, an Australian banking startup which is attempting to take on Australia’s four core banks, announced an A$50 million Series A funding round, according to a press release.
The funding round closed in the week prior to Zeller’s May 4th launch and was led by Spark Capital, a previous investor in Twitter, Slack, Oculus and Coinbase. Square Peg, Apex Capital Partners and Addition also contributed to the investment. The startup was founded by former Visa executive and Square Asia-Pacific leader Ben Pfisterer, and COO Dominic Yap.
Zeller offers EFTPOS payment terminals, fee-free spending accounts and free business Mastercards to users. The company says it will use the funding to rapidly accelerate development for its integrated business banking platform. It also stated plans to expand product and engineering size across Australia with 18 new positions opening.
“Over 80 percent of merchants who have signed up for Zeller had an existing business banking relationship with an incumbent. Our team hears how frustrated these business owners are by the lack of service and support they receive, and that they’re paying incredibly high fees for outdated EFTPOS hardware and underdeveloped banking technology,” said Ben Pfisterer, Zeller CEO and co-founder.
Zeller has seen large growth in a short time, raising A$81M in 12 months, and signing up 1,500 Australian businesses in the first month and increasing weekly payment volume 200% since launch.
The alternative banking fintech has shown early success trying to take on Australia’s main four banks (Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Westpac, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, National Australia Bank), with over 80% of businesses that have signed up coming from a big-4 bank.
Zeller says the main reasons businesses have switched include dissatisfaction with high incumbent fees, lack of customer support and outdated EFTPOS payment terminal software.
In other fintech news, payment integration company Mollie raised $800 million in an all-equity funding round led by Blackstone Growth. Migrant digital banking provider MAJORITY also raised $19 million in a seed round, and announced expansion of services to all 50 states.