Government services, for many, epitomize the worst of bureaucracy: they are, at their low point, large, lumbering organizations working under strained budgets, staffed by lifer employees who don\u2019t get much say in improving things, and lots of paperwork. But as ageing public information infrastructure grinds to a halt and public services start making the switch to digital, that image is slowly starting to change, and the tech companies helping this along are reaping some of the rewards.<\/p>\n
Today, one of them, PayIt<\/a> \u2014 which has designed a platform to take payments and produce related documentation for public services through web and mobile interfaces \u2014 announced that it has raised a hefty funding round of more than $100 million to tap that opportunity.<\/p>\n PayIt\u2019s <\/a> platform is currently operational in the U.S. and covers a variety of applications that fall under the general category of public services that require government organizations and agencies to take money from us and issue us with certificates and other documents confirming we have done something official. They include Courts and Citations, Environmental Services, Health and Human Services, Motor Vehicle, Parks and Wildlife Services, Professional Licensing, Public Safety, Taxes, Turnpike and Tolling and Utilities.<\/p>\n The plan for PayIt will be to expand that list to cover more use cases, to win more business in the U.S., and to also begin the process of breaking into more international markets.<\/p>\n The funding is coming from a single investor, Insight Partners (which used to go by Insight Venture Partners), <\/a> and it is also notable because of some of the funding context.<\/p>\n Since its founding in 2013, PayIt had only raised $11 million, John Thomson \u2014 the CEO who co-founded and runs the company with Michael Plunkett (COO) in Kansas City \u2014 told me in an interview.<\/p>\n And in case you are wondering, Thomson added that the reason they\u2019re not disclosing a more exact funding figure \u2014 or PayIt\u2019s valuation \u2014 is because the company doesn\u2019t want the financial aspects to be the focus: both because he wants this to be about expansion, and because he doesn\u2019t want to give too much information to competitors.<\/p>\n Indeed, while the market is massive \u2014 in the U.S. alone, Thomson estimates that some $2 trillion flows between public services and constituents annually \u2014 it is also crowded with payment companies that want to tap some of that for themselves.<\/p>\n Competitors include other payment platforms that work with government services, such as Aliant<\/a>, other payment providers like Stripe<\/a> and PayPal<\/a>, companies like Visa<\/a>, and sometimes even the government itself<\/a>. Thomson does not divulge what PayIt\u2019s own share of the pie is except to note that it is handling a \u201csmall but rapidly growing percentage of the market.\u201d<\/p>\n As citizens, we all know some of the pain points of older systems: they might require in-person visits or snail mail to make payments and procure various official documents. (DMV appointments, for one, can take months to sort out.) As Thomson describes it, what\u2019s going on under the hood is equally as inefficient and slow moving.<\/p>\n \u201cTo do business with the government \u2014 whether it\u2019s U.S., state or local \u2014 the entire burden in many cases is placed on constituents,\u201d Thomson said. Behind the scenes, it\u2019s also bad. There can be \u201cas many as six or seven systems in use to handle a request, a payment and more.\u201d<\/p>\n The idea is that PayIt has built a platform that can integrate all of that into a single process, behind a single front end. \u201cPayments happen in the form of a wallet,\u201d he said, adding that PayIt handles sensitive information in the cloud and doesn\u2019t require users to re-enter too many details, or for too many organizations to have to hand off information between each other to complete a payment subsequent document order. \u201cConsumers love it because it\u2019s like interacting with a business in the private sector,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n PayIt\u2019s notable for straddling two big areas \u2014 fintech and govtech. While the former has seen a ton of innovation that has mirrored the growth of the internet overall, tech companies (and governments) have really only started to scratch the surface with the latter. It will be interesting to see how this develops both in terms of innovation, but also where people will potentially draw a line on too much centralised and digitised information. Recent moves in India around Aadhar \u2014 which is now the world\u2019s largest biometric ID system \u2014 have been more than a little controversial.<\/p>\n For now, however, there are a lot of incremental processes to fix and make efficient, and that is where PayIt sits for now.<\/p>\n