Masabi, the global leader in mobile ticketing and innovative fare collection for transportation, today announced a $12 million funding round with investment from leading international public transport operator Keolis, Lepe Partners, MasterCard and existing investor MMC Ventures.

This latest round, including corporate partners for the first time, marks a step change in Masabi’s growth and speed to market.

Masabi’s JustRide platform is a cloud-based, end-to-end mobile ticketing and fare collection system. It comprises apps for ticket purchase, display and inspection, together with back-end infrastructure for secure payments, ticket management, ticket inspection, customer service, reporting and real-time analytics.

Masabi works with more than 22 transport operators and agencies around the world, including: Virgin Trains, Abellio, Thames Clippers, New Orleans RTA, Boston’s MBTA, Las Vegas, Transport for Athens, and New York’s MTA.

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Today’s announcement builds on strategic partnerships with MasterCard and Keolis. MasterCard and Masabi are working together to help drive cash and its associated costs out of public transport including integrating the one-touch MasterPass digital wallet platform into JustRide.

Keolis is working to include Masabi’s mobile ticketing into its integrated digital offering, dedicated to delivering a new passenger experience.

Brian Zanghi, CEO of Masabi, explained that the company’s mission is to “transform everyday transport for millions of people in cities world-wide”.

“The combination of Masabi, MasterCard and Keolis represents three companies working at the forefront of their respective fields to develop and deploy products, making this a reality,” he continued.

“We are delighted to welcome their investment together with that from Lepe Partners and MMC Ventures to support our operations around the world where mobile ticketing is enhancing the quality of life of urban residents and visitors and bringing about smarter, better connected cities.”

Jonnie Goodwin, founder of Lepe Partners and co-founder of Founders Forum, added that the organisations’ focus is to “help unlock growth in businesses with huge potential – and Masabi fits this exactly”.

“This is about a real, long-term relationship with the team at Masabi as they expand across the globe, enabling them to enhance their core platform to incorporate technology that will change the face of transit payments. We are delighted to be involved in this deal,” he said.

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