A pioneering Australian payment platform for hospitality called Payo has been named as AIN’s Startup of the Month. The platform was singled out from close to 150,000 startups currently raising on the AIN platform for having ‘a winning formula’ as an investable proposition. The business was given the accolade after a judging process involving AIN’s expert panel, combined with a high number of connections from investors.

Payo is a payments and software solution for small and medium restaurants. It solves the problem in hospitality of venues needing to use 4-6 different payment systems with an all-in-one solution enabling venues to make payments more simply and cheaply. The Payo founders came up with the idea following more than 10,000 conversations with venue owners and operators over the past decade in various roles. 

Startup of the Month is a new initiative from AIN to champion and celebrate businesses on the platform with great potential and to help raise their profile. In showcasing these startups, AIN’s aim is to highlight the qualities of investable businesses to inspire and educate others. The team at AIN were impressed with Payo’s innovation, clear evidence of traction and experienced founding team.

The Payo team are looking for funding to complete the front and back end development of the platform, as well as supporting sales efforts to further growth. The startup has more than 1,000 venues signed up so far. 

According to Mike Lebus, co-founder of Angel Investment Network: “AIN is the world’s largest online angel investment platform and Startup of the Month is about showcasing businesses that have a winning formula to gain investor interest. Payo demonstrates that in spades, with a solution to a real world problem for many smaller hospitality businesses, genuine traction and an experienced founding team. We hope other startups seeking funding can learn from what they have achieved and we wish Payo well on the rest of their fundraising journey.”

According to co-founder and CEO of Payo, Taf Chiwanza: “I’m extremely grateful to AIN for this recognition. It is testament to our hard work and the problems we are solving in the hospitality industry. A lot of the problems we are solving are certainly not just an Australian problem. This is a global challenge and we look forward to scaling this and helping restaurants save time and money.”

Check out Payo’s pitch here and watch Taf Chiwanza’s Sixty Second StartUp interview.

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