Grace Ashiru
Egyptian-UK payments technology company Zeal has raised $10 million in new financing, taking its total funding to $14 million as the company prepares to expand its software across millions of payment terminals.
The fintech develops technology that combines card payments with customer-loyalty tools and merchant analytics.
Founded by Omar Ebeid and Belal Mohamed, Zeal is attempting to solve a data problem faced by physical retailers.
Online businesses can typically recognise returning users, monitor purchasing behaviour and personalise offers based on detailed customer data.
Physical merchants often have far less information.
A retailer may process thousands of card transactions without having an easy way to connect those payments with customer identities or loyalty programmes.
Zeal’s technology is designed to bridge that gap by integrating additional functionality into payment infrastructure.
Merchants can use the platform to run loyalty programmes, capture customer information and connect existing loyalty systems to checkout activity.
Payment providers can also use Zeal’s merchant-intelligence tools to monitor transaction volumes, declines, terminal activity and periods of inactivity.
Rather than relying entirely on direct consumer adoption, Zeal works with payment acquirers, payment-service providers, independent sales organisations and merchants.
This distribution model allows the company to reach large numbers of businesses through organisations that already manage fleets of payment terminals.
Zeal says signed agreements with acquiring partners cover more than four million terminals.
The latest financing is expected to support activation of that contracted pipeline and the company’s next stage of expansion.
The company has previously attracted backing from investors including Raed Ventures, Pinnacle Capital and CUR8 Capital.
With the new $10 million round, Zeal’s cumulative funding has increased to $14 million.
Its core bet is that payment terminals can become more than devices for authorising card transactions.
By adding loyalty, customer-identification and analytics tools, Zeal wants terminals to act as a data layer connecting merchants, customers and payment providers.
If the model scales successfully, the company will increasingly compete not only in payments technology but also in merchant intelligence and customer engagement—areas where physical retailers are trying to narrow the data advantage historically enjoyed by online commerce.
