CellPoint Digital raises $34M in a venture round

The investor is Toscafund, with the money managed by its private equity affiliate Penta Capital. The round came with a leadership change. Kevin Murphy, formerly CEO of Bank of Ireland and Avant Money, takes over as CEO from co-founder Kristian Gjerding. Michael Kelly becomes chairman. Patrick Uckermark joins as chief product and technology officer, and the money pays for 50 new roles in Europe, the Americas and Asia. The main product is Zenith. It is a decisioning layer above a payment orchestrator, either CellPoint's own or a third party's, so airlines and hotels do not have to replace their existing payments infrastructure. The company is London-based. Its competitors include Spreedly, Rapyd and Checkout. No valuation was disclosed, and the gains in customers' payment margins have not been quantified. For AI founders, the deal shows how incumbent infrastructure vendors are repositioning. They add an AI decision layer on top of systems customers already run, so customers do not have to rip anything out, and sell it on measurable outcomes like approval rates and processing costs. Startups building vertical AI on top of payments will now face funded incumbents that already have the transaction data.