YapStone, a company that develops an electronic payments as a service technology for property management and other vertical markets, has raised $50 million in new funding led by Accel Partners with Meritech Capital Partners participating.
YapStone develops RentPayment, end-to-end, payment services platform for property managers to easily accept credit cards and e-Checks for rent and other recurring payments. It essentially aims to disrupt the act of mailing in a check monthly for renters and landlords. The technology is currently serving thousands of property management companies representing over 3 million apartment units.
The beauty of YapStone is that it provides tailored e-payment features for the rental vertical. For example, YapStone allows landlords to separate payments received into categories like security deposits, late fees, and monthly rent. For renters, YapStone gives consumers the ability to put rent on a credit card. The payments system will even send a text to a renter’s mobile phone reminding them to pay.
Additionally, YapStone is using its technology to expand to other verticals including storage, dues payments and vacation rentals. In fact, the company was recently selected as the payments solution for vacation rental giant HomeAway.
Accel partner Todd Maclean tells us that the vacation rentals and home rentals are huge markets in terms of customer reach, and that the firm’s view is that not only is Yapstone the market leader, but the company is well positioned to be in the middle of the convergence of e-payments.
The new funding will be used for YapStone to expand to new verticals, and to support international expansion and acquisitions.