Houston-based P97 Networks, which operates a mobile app that allows users to pay for fuel and convenience-store items with their smartphones, announced Thursday it had raised $40 million in equity financing from Portage Capital Solutions.P97 Networks, a Houston-based platform for gas station and convenience store transactions, received a $40 million venture capital investment the company will use to expand its reach beyond North America.
"P97 fits the profile of exactly what we're looking for," Daniel Ballen, a partner and co-head of Portage Capital Solutions in New York, said."It's a proven product, proven technology, proven management team." Ballen called it"quite a feat" that P97 has already developed a technology that's in over half the gas stations in U.S. and Canada."We look at payments in a number of different areas of the economy, from retail stores to business-to-business payments to buying things online — e-commerce and so forth.