Mobile payment startup TabbedOut has raised $21.5 million in what its chief executive said will be its final funding round before going public.
TabbedOut is similar to E la Carte Inc., which has deals with Genghis Grill and Applebee’s; and Ziosk LLC, which has deals with Red Robin and Olive Garden, in seeking to make it faster and easier for people pay their bills at restaurants and bars. But unlike those competitors, and others like TableSafe Inc., TabbedOut provides no specialty hardware to restaurants and doesn’t allow customers to order food. Its free app provides the same fast checkout as Apple Pay AAPL -0.55% or GoogleWallet, with custom analytics to the dining venue and rewards from Citibank and other partners to diners. The Austin-based company is not large by IPO standards. It employs 52 and in the three years since launching, it has reached just 40,000 monthly actives using its app to pay their bills at restaurants and bars from their smartphones.