Mobile Ticketing Leader Masabi Secures $12m Growth Funding From Keolis, Lepe Partners, MasterCard, and MMC Ventures

Strategic Support from Leaders in Digital Payments and Transport to
Speed Global Expansion of Company’s JustRide Mobile Ticketing Solution

LONDON & BOSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Masabi,
the global leader in mobile ticketing and innovative fare collection for
transportation, today announced a $12 million funding round with
investment from leading international public transport operator Keolis,
Lepe
Partners, MasterCard, and existing investor MMC
Ventures. This latest round, including corporate partners for the
first time, marks a step change in Masabi’s growth and speed to market.

Masabi’s
JustRide platform is a cloud-based, end-to-end mobile ticketing and
fare collection system, in use in cities worldwide. It comprises
award-winning apps for ticket purchase, display and inspection, together
with back-end infrastructure for secure payments, ticket management,
ticket inspection, customer service, reporting and real-time analytics.
Masabi works with more than 22 transport operators and agencies around
the world, including: Virgin Trains, Abellio, Thames Clippers, New
Orleans RTA, Boston’s MBTA, Las Vegas, Transport for Athens, and New
York’s MTA.

Today’s announcement builds on strategic partnerships with MasterCard
and Keolis.
MasterCard and Masabi are working together to help drive cash and its
associated costs out of public transport including integrating the
one-touch MasterPass
digital wallet platform into JustRide. Keolis is working to include
Masabi’s mobile ticketing into its integrated digital offering,
dedicated to delivering a new passenger experience.

“Our mission is to transform everyday transport for millions of people
in cities world-wide. The combination of Masabi, MasterCard and Keolis
represents three companies working at the forefront of their respective
fields to develop and deploy products, making this a reality,” said Brian
Zanghi, CEO of Masabi. “We are delighted to welcome their investment
together with that from Lepe Partners and MMC Ventures to support our
operations around the world where mobile ticketing is enhancing the
quality of life of urban residents and visitors and bringing about
smarter, better connected cities.”

Masabi’s technology revolutionizes the customer experience across all
modes of transport, freeing passengers from waiting in line for a ticket
or scrambling for cash when paying for their fare. For cities and
transport operators it significantly reduces the cost of fare
collection, removing the need for costly hardware and ticket media. At
the same time integrated big-data analysis and visualization tools
present agency activity via a user-friendly graphical interface,
allowing them to better plan, manage and optimize their services.

“Technology is revolutionising city transport and Masabi is at the
forefront of this movement, working in major global cities such as New
York, London and Athens,” said Hany
Fam, president MasterCard Enterprise Partnerships. “Making
access to a city’s transit system as simple as possible for residents
and visitors is a key component for sustainable urban growth.”

“As a leading public transport operator, one of our key priorities is to
improve our passengers’ travel experience, using mobile technology to
make journeys seamless,” said Jean-Pierre Farandou, Executive Chairman
of the Keolis Group. “Through our partnership with Masabi, our PlanBookTicket
solution will go up to the next level by integrating Masabi’s ticket
technology. The combination of our expertise will give us a step ahead
both in France and around the world.”

Jonnie
Goodwin, founder of Lepe Partners and co-founder of Founders
Forum said, “Our focus is on helping unlock growth in businesses with
huge potential – and Masabi fits this exactly. This is about a real,
long-term relationship with the team at Masabi as they expand across the
globe, enabling them to enhance their core platform to incorporate
technology that will change the face of transit payments. We are
delighted to be involved in this deal.”

“MMC backed Masabi from an early stage because we were convinced that
their technology was going to catapult public transport ticketing from
paper to mobile, giving passengers the fantastic experience that they’ve
come to expect in every other industry. Masabi have proven us right,
winning contracts with leading transit operators all across the globe.
We are delighted to continue to support Masabi and welcome new investors
to help us take the company to the next level of scale,” said Simon
Menashy of MMC Ventures.

ENDS

About Masabi

Masabi
is the global leader in mobile ticketing and fare collection for
transportation. We deliver transport ticketing solutions that delight
customers and reduce cost for agencies and operators. Masabi’s JustRide
is a scalable mobile ticketing and fare management platform, which
allows agencies to upgrade or replace their legacy ticketing systems at
a fraction of the cost of traditional options and at a minimum risk for
our agency partners. Masabi is backed by Fontinalis Partners, Lepe
Partners, m8 Capital, MasterCard, MMC Ventures and Keolis. Twitter:
Masabi_com

Forward Looking Statements

Statements in this press release which are not historical facts are
forward-looking and subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private
Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. When used in this press
release, the words “believe”, “expect”, “could”, “may”, “would”, “will”,
“trend” and similar words are intended to identify forward-looking
statements. Examples of forward-looking statements include, but are not
limited to, statements relating to MasterCard’s future prospects,
developments and business strategies. Forward-looking statements speak
only as of the date they are made, and MasterCard undertakes no duty to
update any forward-looking statements made in this press release or to
conform such statements to actual results or changes in MasterCard’s
expectations.

Actual results may differ materially from such forward-looking
statements for a number of reasons, including those risks, uncertainties
and other factors discussed under the “Risk Factors” heading in
MasterCard’s most recent annual report on Form 10-K and other documents
filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Contacts

For further information:
Contact Masabi:
Ed
Howson
Ed.Howson@masabi.com
+44
(0)207 089 8860
or
UK Media:
Cordelia Meacher /
Michael House
FieldHouse Associates
masabi@fieldhouseassociates.com
+44
(0) 7961 311080
or
US Media:
Maribel Lopez
Scratch
Marketing + Media
Maribel@scratchmm.com