Masabi, developer of mobile ticketing and fare collection for transportation,  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, according to the company.

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.

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, according to a company statement. 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.