Tapaya raises €1M pre-seed to power payments on any device

Prague-based payments infrastructure startup Tapaya has raised €1 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Passion Capital, with co-lead participation from Depo Ventures and follow-on investment from BADideas.fund.

Founded in 2025 by Laura Ďorďová, Roman Kuchařík, and Petr Zahradník, Tapaya is developing infrastructure that enables banks, fintechs, and software platforms to integrate in-person payment acceptance directly into their applications. The company is already working on integrations in the Czech Republic and expanding partnerships across Central and Eastern Europe and the Baltics.

In-person payments continue to rely heavily on dedicated hardware terminals, creating cost and operational complexity for merchants and software providers. Embedding payment functionality into platforms such as POS systems, ERP software, or kiosks remains a lengthy and resource-intensive process due to certification requirements and fragmented infrastructure.

Tapaya addresses this by consolidating compliance, certification, and processor integrations into a single software layer. Its platform allows developers to enable payment acceptance across Android, iOS, and other commercial devices, effectively turning standard hardware into payment terminals and removing the need for dedicated devices.

By simplifying integration and reducing reliance on third parties, the company aims to shorten implementation timelines from months to days.

Commenting on the company’s approach, co-founder and CEO Laura Ďorďová said:

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.

The system is designed to comply with evolving standards set by the PCI Security Standards Council, including the PCI MPoC framework, which enables secure card acceptance on commercial devices. By abstracting these requirements into a single integration, Tapaya allows partners to offer in-person payments without building their own certification infrastructure.

The funding will be used to complete Tapaya’s PCI MPoC certification and further develop its in-house technology, while supporting the expansion of its partner network across Europe.