Bangladesh-based CloudWell announces $2 million investment from India’s Aavishkaar

Bangladesh-based electronic payment solutions provider CloudWell Limited has announced a $2 million investment from Indian venture capital Aavishkaar Frontier Fund.

Organised by The City Bank Capital Resources Limited, the funding will be the second round for CloudWell within two years.

Earlier, it had an equity investment from IIMI Asia Pacific, Singapore, in 2014, CloudWell said in a media release on Saturday.

CloudWell represents telecom operators, mobile financial service providers, and various utility service providers as their Bangladesh distributor for alternative channels, enabling them to reach places where they currently have no presence.

It is being marketed across the retail segment with the brand name “PayWell”.

By using the point-of-sale (POS), mobile apps, and web apps available in retail outlets serviced by PayWell, customers can avail of various payment and transaction services.

They include airtime top-up, utility bill payments, bus or train ticket purchases, and transactions using mobile financial services (MFS), the release said.

On the partnership with Aavishkaar, Anisul Islam, Chairman and CEO of CloudWell said, “With this fresh investment from Aavishkaar, PayWell will expand its market across Bangladesh,” the release said.

It will enable its agents to retail various services including mobile airtime, utility bills payment, dish TV subscription etc and  also equipping SMEs and enterprise merchants to accept payments from around 34 million mobile financial service users, it said.

He said PayWell hoped to increase it agent base from 2, 500 to 30,000 by the end of 2018.

Indian venture capital Aavishkaar Frontier Fund, launched in 2015, is investing in enterprises operating in Indonesia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.