DHAKA: Indian venture capital Aavishkaar Frontier Fund makes its inroads into Bangladesh by investing $2 million in CloudWell Aavishkaar, a payment system firm operating in the country, said the company in a statement yesterday. The CloudWell provides agent-based last mile payment solutions to a host of service providers such as telecom operators, mobile financial service players and other billers under the brand name ‘PayWell’. This investment will enable acceleration of CloudWell’s growth and scale up its nationwide network.
Founded in November 2012, PayWell is an organised retail approach by CloudWell, which leverages technology and aims to provide convenient payment solutions to major business-to-consumer organisations in the utility, telecom, financial services, transport, retail and e-commerce sectors in Bangladesh. By using point-of-sale (POS)/ mobile apps/web apps available in retail outlets of PayWell, customers can avail various payment and transaction services such as airtime top up, utility bill payments, bus/train ticket purchases, transacting using mobile financial services (MFS) accounts, etc.
CloudWell has already a network of over 5,000 retailers across 34 of 64 districts in the country with a majority from districts outside Dhaka. With a growing retailer network, the company intends to catalyse entrepreneurship and increase economic benefit to PayWell retailers in urban and rural Bangladesh.
CloudWell Chairman and CEO Anisul Islam said: “With this investment from Aavishkaar, PayWell will expand its market across Bangladesh with a targeted network of more than 30,000 agents in two years, retailing various services to consumers and also equipping SMEs and enterprise merchants to accept payments from more than 30 million mobile financial services users.” The Aavishkaar Frontier Fund is a regional fund which has investment in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Pakistan.
