Digital contactless payments solutions firm ToneTag has raised funds from a group of IT industry veterans, including Mohandas Pai, Chairman, Manipal Global Education Services, T K Kurien, Vice Chairman of Wipro, Anand Chandrasekaran, former Snapdeal Chief Product Officer, Deepak Ghaisas, former iflex India CEO, and Arun Seth, trustee at Nasscom Foundation.

The company, which had raised $1 million from Reliance VC last year, did not disclose the quantum of funding. The Bengaluru-based startup uses a sound-based technology to communicate, transfer data and make payments between two devices close to one another. ToneTag had partnered with Yes Bank to power the bank’s mobile wallet Yes Pay.

“While the company has sufficient cash, one thing we missed is the support of like-minded people who want to enable cashless payments in the country,” Kumar Abhishek, Founder of Tonetag, Abhishek said technology like ToneTag’s will be a natural enabler of India’s shift into a new information infrastructure and digital India.

Founded in 2013 by Abhishek and friend Vivek Kumar Singh, ToneTag has 36 employees, two thirds in technology. Among its partners are Tech Mahindra and Mphasis, and it touches 18 million consumers globally. ToneTag requires only a speaker and mic and so works with all phones, not just smart phones. “This is critical for financial inclusion,” Arun Seth said, and noted that the technology works with existing financial infrastructure like credit card machines and ATM, and so will help drive India to a cashless and card-less economy.

Source: Times of India