Published on the 01/12/2015 | Written by Beverley Head
Fintech disruptor Tyro Payments is taking the fight right up to the banks’ front door after receiving a $100 million injection from investors…
The company – which is an unlisted public entity – this week announced Tiger Global Management in New York, TDM Asset Management in Sydney and Atlassian cofounder Mike Cannon-Brookes had stumped up the funds that will allow it to develop and offer a much broader range of financial services to small and medium businesses.
Tiger Global put in the most with a $59.5 million injection, $30.5 million came from TDM, while Cannon-Brookes – who has been a board member of Tyro since 2009 – has stumped up $10 million in a show of continued faith in the Tyro business model. Cannon-Brookes already owned more than 6 million Tyro shares – this will increase his holding.
Granted a condition-free banking licence by the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority in August, Tyro will be able to accept deposits and lend funds.
In its recent response to the Financial Systems Inquiry, the Government signalled its broad support for innovation in the sector, noting that policy settings needed to encourage rather than block disruptors, and the need for any legislation and regulation to be technology neutral. It’s into this more innovation aware environment that Tyro is sailing.
Tyro claims to already serve more than 14,000 businesses in Australia and process more than $8 billion worth of transactions through its network, which helped grow revenues 38 per cent to $72.4 million last year.
While the company has made a profit for the last three years, the quantum slumped this financial year – from $3.8 million in 2014 to just $691,000 this year; Tyro attributed the fall to rapid investment in technology and skills.
Announcing the funds injection Tyro CEO Jost Stollmann said the company was intent on creating a new ecosystem to offer better products and experiences to SMEs than were available from conventional banks. The company this year also set up a fintech innovation hub in Sydney in a bid to forge links with other fintech start ups.
Established 12 years ago the company currently has a team of 150 software engineers, with ambitions to triple that to 450 over the coming three years.
