BBVA Invests in Mobile Point of Sale Company SumUp

BBVA Ventures, the corporate venture arm of BBVA Group, is investing in SumUp, a company that enables mobile devices to accept card payments.

SumUp operates in 11 countries in Europe and offers EMV-compliant processing for Visa, MasterCard, American Express and other card networks. SumUp is BBVA Ventures' first investment in Europe. The companies did not disclose the size of BBVA's investment.

SumUp plans to draw on BBVA's experience as the mobile payments company expands to Latin America.

"Receiving the financial backing from such an important international player of the financial industry is a clear endorsement of SumUp's potential to reinvent the point of sale experience on a global scale. We're looking forward to the great things we will achieve together with BBVA—in Europe and South America," said Daniel Klein, SumUp's CEO, in a release. American Express and Groupon also recently invested in SumUp.

SumUp has developed a device that attaches to iOS and Android smartphones and tablets, allowing businesses to accept credit card payments for a fee of 2.75% per transaction. SumUp, which recently signed a point of sale agreement with Visa and an iPad acceptance partnership with Revel Systems, is part of a large market of mobile point of sale providers, which includes companies such as iZettle, mPowa, Intuit, PayPal and Square.

BBVA Ventures plans to invest $100 million in financial industry tech startups.