Tapaya Raises EUR 1M to Bring Software-Driven Payments Beyond Traditional Terminals

• Czech fintech Tapaya raised EUR 1M to develop software infrastructure for embedded in-person payments
• Founders bring experience in building and certifying payment products
• The solution simplifies SoftPOS adoption through compliance and integration infrastructure
• With the new funding, Tapaya continues product development and expands partnerships across CEE and wider Europe

This April, Prague-based fintech startup Tapaya raised EUR 1M in its pre-seed funding round to develop infrastructure that enables banks, fintechs, and software platforms to embed in-person payment acceptance directly into their applications. The round was led by Passion Capital, with co-lead participation from the well-known Czech VC firm DEPO Ventures (invested in WanderWallet, among others) and follow-on investment from another well-known VC fund BADideas.fund (invested in WhiteBridge AI, among others). The funding will support Tapaya’s PCI MPoC certification process and further development of its in-house payments infrastructure.

From Payment Certification Experience to a New Infrastructure Vision

Founded in 2025 by Laura Ďorďová (CEO), Roman Kuchařík (CPO), and Petr Zahradník (CTO), Tapaya is building a software layer that allows commercial devices, including smartphones, tablets, kiosks, and enterprise systems, to function as payment terminals. The company aims to reduce the complexity traditionally associated with in-person payment acceptance by abstracting certification, compliance, and processor integrations into a single infrastructure layer.

The startup’s founders previously worked together building and certifying payment products, giving them direct experience with the challenges involved in enabling secure payment acceptance. They created the company around a simple observation: while much of commerce has moved into software, payment acceptance has remained closely tied to dedicated hardware and complex implementation processes.

The global payments industry has traditionally relied on dedicated payment terminals, creating additional costs and operational complexity for merchants. For software platforms looking to integrate payment acceptance into their own products, the process can involve lengthy certification and integration requirements.

Simplifying the Path to SoftPOS Adoption

Tapaya aims to address this challenge by providing infrastructure that allows companies to offer in-person payments without building their own certification and compliance stack from the ground up. The company’s approach is based on the growing adoption of SoftPOS technology, which enables secure card acceptance on commercial devices without relying on traditional payment terminals.

Indeed, the SoftPOS market reached EUR 336M globally in 2024 and is forecast to grow at 23% annually to EUR 1.14B by 2030. In Europe, contactless card payments grew 12% in the first half of 2025, yet existing infrastructure struggles to support newer payment methods and digital wallets, which are expected to exceed EUR 13.5T in transaction value by 2028.

At the same time, the PCI MPoC framework introduced by the global PCI Security Standards Council created a pathway for secure payment acceptance on general-purpose devices. However, Tapaya believes adoption still requires simplifying the complexity around implementation.

Expanding Across Europe’s Fragmented Payments Landscape

Tapaya has already begun integrations in the Czech Republic and is developing partnerships across Central and Eastern Europe. Altogether, the company sees Europe as a market with significant opportunities but also considerable complexity due to differences between countries, payment ecosystems, and local requirements.

By providing a common infrastructure layer, Tapaya aims to help software platforms and financial institutions expand payment capabilities across markets without having to solve the same challenges independently. The company is also preparing its platform for emerging developments in payments, including agentic payments and the digital euro.

Investor Confidence in Building Toward Invisible, Software-Driven Payments

‘What draws us to Tapaya is the combination of deep technical credibility and a genuinely underserved gap. The team has already navigated the hardest parts of payments certification once, so they know exactly what they are abstracting away for their customers. In-person payments represent six times the transaction volume of online, yet the infrastructure available to software builders has barely evolved. Tapaya is changing the access equation for an entire layer of the market,’ Passion Capital’s partner Will Orde comments.

The new funding enables Tapaya plans to continue developing its infrastructure and expanding its partner network across Europe.

‘We want accepting payments to be as simple as turning on a light. For decades, it has meant relying on a piece of hardware, buying it, carrying it, connecting it, and reconciling it separately. Merchants are tired of that complexity. We’ve seen firsthand how much time and cost goes into enabling something as simple as that. While the rest of commerce has moved into software, payments have remained stuck in hardware. Tapaya removes that friction by packaging the entire stack into a single SDK, so developers can integrate payments as easily as any other feature,’ Ms Ďorďová concludes.

As commerce continues to move toward software-driven experiences, the ability to embed payments seamlessly into digital products is becoming increasingly important. By removing the complexity traditionally associated with payment infrastructure, Tapaya’s solution drastically facilitates in-person payments for businesses, developers, and financial institutions.This positions the company to play a decisive role in accelerating the shift toward a future where payments become a natural, invisible part of everyday digital interactions rather than a separate hardware-dependent process.