Verizon Hedges Softcard Bet With Flint Investment

Flint Mobile, a startup built around letting users snap photos of a credit card to make payments, has raised another $9.4 million in funding and announced an online version of its service, according to TechCrunch.

The Series C round was led by Verizon Ventures, a new Flint investor, along with Peninsula Ventures, Digicel, Storm Ventures and True Ventures. The new money brings the total raised by Flint to $20.4 million.

Neither Verizon nor Flint would say why the largest U.S. mobile carrier was investing in Flint. But TechCrunch noted that mobile carriers have taken many stabs at getting a place at the mobile-payments table, but with mixed success, including the still-not-quite-off-the-ground SoftCard (formerly Isis). Flint’s in-person payments business has a merchant and business-customer count in the “high tens of thousands” with average transactions around $120, giving it a solid base to grow from.

The new online business, dubbed Sell Online, will let Flint businesses add a payment option into their websites that is also integrated with other businesses offered by Flint, including QuickBooks. Sell Online is intended as an add-on for existing Flint customers, and not a direct competitor to PayPal and Apple Pay. The online payments will have the same pricing as the in-person mobile payments service: 1.95 percent for debit cards and 2.95 percent for credit-card payments.