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accumulate

Swedish NFC Payments System Developer Accumulate Lands $2m Funding

by Ville Vesterinen, February 10, 2010 — Leave a Comment

Swedish university students are to begin using a near field communication payments system (NFC) developed by payments processor Payex and secure mobile solutions specialist Accumulate.

For this,  PayEx along with existing investors have invested US$2m of venture capital in Accumulate. The money will be used to further develop Accumulate’s mobile payments and mobile security business.

20,000 students are expected to be enrolled on the system by the end of this year, with a total of 100,000 students at a number of universities going live over the next six months, beginning with Uppsala University and Linköping University.

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Calibre One Reports Dip In Northern European Investments in Q2

by Antti Vilpponen, August 13, 2009 — Leave a Comment

Calibre OneCalibre One, an American corporation focusing on executive search has released an investments summary from the second quarter of 2009. In this summary, they outline the investment market to gradually bounce back in Northern America, while it slightly dips in Europe and cuts to about a quarter in Northern Europe. Their data is based on early level Tech investments and thus does not fully shed light into the whole market.

In Northern Europe, $56 million were invested in 9 deals in the second quarter according to Calibre One while the respective figures for Q1 were $219 million in 14 deals. The nine investments for Q2 in Northern Europe were Teklatech ($6,9M), Imbera ($15,7M), Aava Mobile ($4,1M), eZ Systems (undisclosed), Hexaformer ($4,5M), Tobii Technology ($22,2M), Swebo Bioenergy ($1,9M), Alternativ Media (undisclosed) and Accumulate (undisclosed). The country breakdown lists 5 investments to Sweden, 2 to Finland and one investment to both Denmark and Norway. While this is no way is the complete list of course, it might give sense as where we are with regards to the trend.

Accumulate and Payex Enable Retail Payments With Mobile Phones

by Miikka Kukkosuo, July 29, 2009 — 1 Comment
Deal Cash With Your Mobile
The Swedish mobile payment and security solution provider Accumulate has announced expanding their technology further into physical point-of-sale (POS) payments with mobile. Accumulate is partnering with PayEx, a Swedish-based payment system provider, to allow retail customers pay their purchases with mobile instead of cash.
The service is piloted in Sweden on the island of Gotland in selected stores. The claimed benefits are reduction in cash handling and increased security. It is also said to be fast and cost-effective to the end customers, and even very small amounts can be paid without incurring high transaction costs for the retailer.
Accumulate delivers the patent-pending mobile technology, while PayEx is responsible for the overall infrastructure. A mobile payment terminal is needed in the retailer’s premises, and a client software in the end customer’s mobile handset.
Users must first register an account with PayEx that is connected to a bank account or credit card, and naturally install the client to their phone as well. Also RFID technology can be used for the payment, through either NFC enabled phone model or some other RFID enabled card is needed (e.g., a Swedish public transportation card).
User flow for buying a cup of coffee:
1) the buyer starts the PayEx client on the handset
2) the retailer enters the sum to the payment terminal and the buyer sweeps the handsets near the terminal
4) the transaction is shown on the customer’s handset, and can be accepted by pressing OK (or the amount changed) and entering their personal code. Also credit can be used for part or whole of the purchase.
In addition to POS use, the solution can also be used to transfer money person-to-person, person-to-machine, and also in online shopping.
Offers increased security, as in order to execute a purchase, the mobile phone must be switched on, the program in the mobile phone started, and purchase approved with a pin code. However, combined with the need of creating an account beforehand and installing the software, this also creates quite a big challenges for getting the solution out there.

Accumulate logoThe Swedish mobile payment and security solution provider Accumulate has announced (in Swedish) expanding their technology further into physical point-of-sale (POS) payments with mobile. Accumulate is partnering with PayEx, a Swedish-based payment system provider, to allow retail customers pay their purchases with mobile phones.

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Mobile Payment Solutions Developer Accumulate Lands VC Funding

by Miikka Kukkosuo, June 23, 2009 — Leave a Comment
Accumulate logoAccumulate, a Swedish mobile payment and security solution provider, received an investment from The Sixth Swedish National Pension Fund (The Sixth AP Fund; Sjätte AP-fonden). The Sixth AP fund is the so called Swedish state fund for long-term risk capital, investing in small and medium-sized growth companies. http://www.apfond6.se/en/
The size of the investment has not been disclosed.
Accumulate had an angel round in 2008 in which Carl Palmstierna, a famous Swedish business angel, and Patric Svanberg invested in the company. Carl Palmstierna is currently the chairman of the board.
Accumulate’s CEO and co-founder Stefan Hultberg comments that the cash will be used in expanding the business of Accumulate’s mobile service platform Flexion and its new mobile security solution, which is in an establishment phase.
The mobile service platform Flexion allows for flexible pricing and license control of mobile applications and games, and is managed by Accumulate’s UK subsidiary. The company has business for example with Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and Samsung, and despite strong revenue growth needed new cash for working capital due to the notoriously long payment cycles in the mobile business. Accumulate will also strengthen its operations team. Accumulate claims to have served 6 million end users up to date.
Accumulate’s mobile security solution can be utilized for example for securing credit card purchases and person-to-person money transfers, for secure logins and signing, and enabling payments by mobile phone. The first pilot project is starting next month, according to Stefan. Also an OpenID based solution is coming still this summer. Stefan identifies the banking segment as the most interesting target for the solution, though they can be slow in adapting new technology. In addition, Accumulate is also interested in other industries and especially the enterprise security market. In order to reach the enterprise market Accumulate will utilize a channel sales strategy, having just a couple weeks ago hired a channel sales manager for building up the partnerships.
The press release (in Swedish; here is Google translated version).

Accumulate logoAccumulate, a Swedish mobile payment and security solution provider, has received an investment from The Sixth Swedish National Pension Fund (The Sixth AP Fund; Sjätte AP-fonden). The Sixth AP fund is the so called Swedish state fund for longterm risk capital, investing in small and medium-sized growth companies.  The size of the investment has not been disclosed.

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