The funds represent mx51’s first major round of investment, secured less than 12 months after mx51 spun out of Assembly Payments in May 2020. The business is led and founded by former Westpac executive and former Assembly Payments co-CEO Victor Zheng.

The round will allow mx51 to rapidly expand in Australia and build out further functionality to compete with other payment platforms.

Banks and acquirers leverage mx51’s technology to offer a white-label rich, robust and secure payment platform for merchants that competes with solutions such as Stripe, Tyro and Square. This helps these companies maintain a key relationship with their business customers, which they can build upon with additional financial services.

Thanks to its launch partnership with Westpac the company has processed over $1 billion in transactions since founding last year. Lune Croissanterie, Salvation Army, Carla Zampatti are a few of the merchants using the platform via Westpac.

It expects to grow its total volume to over $10 billion within the next 12 months as it closes partnerships with more major Australian financial institutions. It’s also aiming to become the first true multi-channel payments platform whereby merchants can seamlessly take payments across in-store and online channels.

As part of its growth trajectory, mx51 is aiming to grow its headcount by 30% this year adding to its team of product, engineering and operations professionals.

“mx51 is helping Australian banks and acquirers, who are the backbone of our financial services sector, compete with a myriad of nimble overseas competitors who are muscling in on the payments sector,” mx51 CEO Victor Zheng said.

“We’re able to partner closely and quickly with major financial institutions as we designed the platform to be bank-grade from inception. The size of our first ever round speaks for itself in terms of how bullish we are about rapidly rolling out our platform across Australia.”

“Our partnership with Westpac has been a fantastic incubator for the product, and now we are in advanced discussions around expanding to other financial services institutions across Australia.”

James Douglas, Investment Director at Acorn said: “We have always been impressed with the team at mx51 and excited about their vision and passion for enhancing the payments eco system in Australia. We believe that mx51 will be a key pillar of the Australian payments landscape – and in the long term a key part of the global payments ecosystem”

Managing partner at Artesian, Luke Fay said: “Artesian's foundation in banking and FinTech enabled us to identify mx51 as a future global player in the payments space. We are thrilled to support the company on their journey as they partner with more financial institutions in their push to scale”

David Phillips, Fund Manager, Commencer Capital said: “We are excited to invest in and be working with the mx51 team to provide Australian banks and their customers, both business and consumer, with leading locally-developed payments technology.”

“This round of investment will help facilitate the rapid expansion of the mx51 offering across Australian financial institutions, providing a new standard in merchant and consumer payments. Our investment aligns with the Commencer’s philosophy of investing in businesses with high growth potential backed by strong founders.”

Kallan Hogan, Vice President Fintech Account Management, Australasia, Mastercard said: “mx51 joined Mastercard’s global fintech accelerator program Start Path in 2020. Seeing a homegrown business like mx51 poised for rapid acceleration is a great moment for the local fintech community,” said Kallan Hogan, Vice President Fintech Account Management, Australasia, Mastercard.

“It’s an example of the innovation Australia has on offer, and Mastercard is proud to extend its local and global support to a fintech laser-focused on delivering integrated payment solutions for merchants.”

Media contact
Harrison Polites
0409623618
harrison@themediaacclerator.com.au

About mx51

mx51 is a bank-grade payments-as-a-service platform that enables banks and non-bank acquirers to provide modern and seamless multi-channel payments and value-added solutions to merchants.