Vindicia adds mobile payments to CashBox via Boku

Vindicia, a provider of the CashBox billing and customer management system for online merchants, is announcing today that consumers will be able to pay for items with their mobile phone numbers through a partnership with mobile payments firm Boku.

That could help generate millions of dollars in additional annual revenue for the merchants that use CashBox, and it fits with the company’s mission of being a foundation for digital commerce.

That’s because not everybody likes to pay with credit cards or has a bank account. Some prefer the simplicity of something like Boku, which lets you pay with your mobile phone number and then authenticates the transaction with a text message.

Boku has been integrated into the mobile billing systems of more than 240 wireless carriers around the globe in 67 countries. According to Juniper Research, mobile payments are expected to triple in the next three years to a value of $670 billion, with digital goods accounting for 40 percent of that.

Gene Hoffman, chairman and chief executive of Vindicia, said in an interview with VentureBeat,”The best way to sell digital content and compelling services is to make it easy for the customer to pay for them.”

He added, “We help customers handle marketing, customer relationship management, and billing and sit above the payment network. We help manage customers, how to acquire new ones, and how to maintain users.”

Belmont, Calif.-based Vindicia offloads the complex task of setting up a payment system for a company. With carrier billing, Vindicia covers the whole gamut of payment options including credit cards, debit cards, PayPal, ACH, pre-paid cards, Boleto Bancario, European Direct Debit and more.

“Customers all around the world are embracing mobile commerce at a rapid pace – and carrier billing continues to be a tremendously effective enabling technology for consumers.” said Ron Hirson, Boku president and co-founder.

Vindicia said that it has processed more than $4 billion in digital commerce and generated $75 million in annual incremental revenue for its customers, who include Symantec, Trion Worlds, TransUnion Interactive, Intuit, and Activision Blizzard. In December, Vindicia had its largest revenue month ever. Revenue was up 70 percent from a year ago, the number of clients using the system doubled, and revenues from dating were up 147 percent and online games rose 470 percent. One kids game saw transactions at a rate of 80,000 per hour. Vindicia has raised $40 million and it has 100 employees. Investors include DCM, FTV Capital, Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments, Leader Ventures, and Onset Ventures.

Boku reaches more than 3 billion consumers worldwide. Boku’s backers include Andreessen Horowitz, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, Index Ventures and Khosla Ventures.

Vindicia’s main competition is Zuora.