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How a Forgotten Wallet Turned Into America's Verb for Money
Venmo turned paying a friend back into a social ritual - complete with emojis and a public feed. Fifteen years later, "just Venmo me" is how a generation moves money.
Pomelo
Pomelo (Pomelo Group) is a London- and Singapore-based payments technology company that provides a unified, API-based Payment Platform-as-a-Service. It gives financial institutions, fintechs and enterprises ready-to-use payment rails, merchant onboarding and management, transaction monitoring, and a range of acceptance methods - from QR codes and tap-to-pay to payment links and card issuing - under a single white-label platform. Founded in 2017 as Pomelo Pay, the company has grown into a regulated e-money issuer serving 2,000+ businesses across the UK and Southeast Asia.
Ziina زينة
Ziina is a Dubai-based fintech that lets people and small businesses send, spend, and get paid from a phone. Launched in 2020 as one of the UAE's first peer-to-peer payment apps, it removes the friction of IBANs and Swift codes by moving money through a phone number, then extends into business tools: payment links, QR and NFC Tap to Pay, a checkout gateway for online stores, and an upcoming business card. Licensed by the Central Bank of the UAE as a stored value facility, Ziina has raised more than $30 million and serves tens of thousands of consumer and business customers across the MENA region.
Up 'n go
Up 'n go is a San Diego fintech that lets restaurant guests pay their check by scanning a QR code or tapping a texted link - no app to download. Diners view the bill, split it any number of ways, pay with Apple Pay, Google Pay, Venmo, PayPal, a card or gift card, and leave feedback, all from their own phone. Built to plug directly into POS systems like NCR Aloha, Toast, Oracle Micros and Simphony, the company was among the first to bring app-free pay-at-the-table to U.S. restaurants and has since processed more than $1 billion across nearly 14 million contactless payments at chains from First Watch to Fox Restaurant Concepts.
TBCASoft
TBCASoft is a Silicon Valley blockchain company building a consortium-based distributed ledger that lets telecom carriers, mobile payment apps and banks interoperate across borders. Its HIVEX payment network lets travelers pay with their home QR-code wallet abroad without merchants changing POS systems, while the CBSG Consortium and CCIS identity framework extend the same trust rails to digital identity and authentication. Founded in 2016 by Ling Wu, it is backed by SoftBank and Naver and connects payment apps reaching tens of millions of users across Asia.