Bluefin to expand encryption reach with $25 million funding boost

Atlanta-based Bluefin, which pioneered turnkey systems for point-to-point encryption (P2PE) for payment card data at the point of sale several years ago, has won $25 million in funding to develop new services and expand its reach.

Australia’s Macquarie Capital Principal Finance led the $25 million round for growth financing, joining existing investors including Napier Park and Camden Partners, Bluefin recently announced.

The influx of funds will enable Bluefin to enhance technology to protect payment card data in omnichannel environments where mobile devices are playing a bigger role in all transactions as result of the pandemic, said John Perry, Bluefin’s CEO, in an interview.

“With the rise of e-commerce following COVID-19, there’s more personally identifiable information (PII) flowing through all channels, and we plan to develop and improve our solutions to help merchants protect payment card data in more environments and in new regions,” Perry said.

Bluefin in 2014 launched a PCI-validated solution to protect payment card data from interception by third parties through hardware at the point of sale, along with a range of other services to protect and tokenize data upon entry, in transit and in storage.

While Bluefin has more than 130 partners in 32 countries, the company sees opportunities in the next few years to expand use of its services in the U.K. and Europe, Canada and the Asia Pacific region, Perry said.

“Encrypting payment card data is becoming a best practice in a lot of regions outside the U.S., and anywhere there are data-privacy requirements where merchants are subject to fines when customer data is exposed,” he said.

Bluefin also may use some of its new funding for strategic acquisitions, Perry said.