Payments specialist CellPoint has secured $34
million in fresh funding.
The investment comes from Toscafund and is managed by
its private equity affiliate Penta Capital.
U.K.-based Cellpoint has also launched Zenith, an artificial
intelligence (AI) powered decisioning engine for airline and hospitality payments.
The technology sits above the payment orchestration layer and helps travel
brands automate commercial decisions.
The investment follows the appointment of Kevin Murphy as group CEO of Cellpoint late last year and Michael Kelly as chairman.
"Payments are one of the largest controllable cost and
revenue lines in an airline or hotel P&L, and one of the least well
managed,"said Murphy, group CEO. "Our job is to change that.
Zenith uses AI to raise approval rates, cut cost of payments, recover
lost revenue and give CFOs a live view of what their payment stack
is actually doing.”
Kristian Gjerding, co-founder and CEO of the company has exited the business. In a LinkedIn post he said he was leaving with a "mixture of pride, thankfulness and restless anticipation."
The investment will help the company speed up development
and invest further in AI lets us build it at pace. It will also enable
Cellpoint to recruit for 50 new roles across product, data, AI, sales and partnerships
in Europe, the Americas and Asia.
The Toscafund investment also funds 50 new roles in product, data, AI, sales and
partnerships across Europe, the Americas and Asia. Meanwhile, Patrick Uckermark
has been named chief product and technology officer from his previous role of
global head of engineering and technology.
"We backed the team and the plan. Kevin and Michael
have the experience to transform CellPoint and the
discipline to turn AI into measurable financial results for airlines and hotels,”
said Steven Scott, managing partner at Penta Capital.
Cellpoint raised $30 million in late 2024 to accelerate the development of its payment optimization platform. The funds also came from Toscafund.