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Play2Pay raises $13M to expand global gamified payments platform

Nancy Dahlberg
Nancy Dahlberg
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The Miami-Dade startup has seen revenue growth of 300% in the past year

Play2Pay enables mobile phone users around the world to pay their service provider bills by playing games, watching videos and completing daily challenges and surveys on their devices. Consumers have fun discovering new apps and brands while app developers and brands acquire new customers.

Now with a new round of funding, the South Florida startup can fuel more expansion of its gamified global payments platform by accelerating product development and hiring.

Play2Pay today announced it closed an oversubscribed $13 million Series A funding round led by Telesoft Partners.  Participating in the round was Harbor Spring Capital along with notable individual investors including former AT&T vice chairman Ralph de la Vega, former Reuters CEO Tom Glocer, Madison Dearborn Partners co-founder and senior advisor Jim Perry, and Virtusa founder and former CEO, Kris Canekeratne.

Founded by Brian Boroff in 2015, Play2Pay built an alternative payment platform that converts consumer’s attention and engagement with brands into a currency that can be redeemed for bill payments. Its users reduce their bills by an average of 30% but nearly one in three  earn enough each month to receive a free monthly service, the company said. 

While usage of mobile phones surged during the pandemic, so did Play2Pay. Revenue has increased almost 300% over the past year, said Boroff, CEO of Play2Pay and a telecom veteran. Play2Pay helped carriers including AT&T, Cricket, Indosat and others realize up to 17% revenue expansion as a result of subscriber engagement on the platform, he said.

“Not only did our partners see 25% of Play2Pay users generating revenue daily on the platform, we offered our brand and service provider partners a new level of data and analytics that allowed them to customize offerings and strengthen customer relationships,” said Boroff, pictured above.

The company has 27 employees, including 15 in South Florida, and at the start of this year moved its offices from Fort Lauderdale to 2980 NE 207th St. in Aventura in northeastern Miami-Dade County. The  payments platform is currently available in high smartphone penetration markets, including the United States, United Kingdom, Mexico, Brazil and Indonesia.  In January, Play2Pay acquired New Zealand competitor Postr, and the startup previously raised $7.5 million, according to Crunchbase. 

“We are growing thoughtfully and are excited about the potential of Play2Pay’s platform for financial services and e-commerce, as well as utility, cable and internet,” Boroff said in the announcement.

In a statement, his lead investor characterized Play2Pay as at the sweet spot of the intersection of mobile payments, monetization and gaming.

“The Play2Pay product creates s a triple whammy winning experience: a win for consumers, a win for brands and a win for service providers. Play2Pay has mega potential to extend their model to multiple industries beyond mobile carriers,” said Arjun Gupta, founder of Telesoft Partners.

This story was updated. Follow @ndahlberg on Twitter and email her at [email protected]

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Nancy Dahlberg
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