Plynk valued at above €50m after €25m fundraising

The Sunday Independent understands the deal with Suisse Privee, a private investment trust, was for a minority stake in the business.

Plynk has also been backed by Bank of Ireland, Enterprise Ireland, venture capital firm Delta Partners and the National Digital Research Centre (NDRC).

It is now looking to take new staff on board and expand geographically, and is understood to be in talks with potential partner banks outside Ireland.

Plynk was founded in 2015 by Charles Dowd, the company's chief executive, who previously worked as a product manager at Facebook, and Clive Foley, who has worked at Microsoft, PocketKings and Wonga.

It is linked to users' Facebook accounts and allows money to be sent via a message similar to a WhatsApp message.

Users receive a payment account with a dedicated IBAN and virtual Mastercard for online payments. The firm was developed at the Bank of Ireland startup 'workbench' in Silicon Docks, and is aiming to establish partnerships with Apple Pay and Android Pay.

"Our growth plan is to become a verb, in every European language. That'll take cash ... an excellent team, and a product that responds to a real consumer need," Dowd wrote in a blog post on Plynk's website..

"From the beginning, it has been our aim to remove the complexities and awkwardness of person-to-person payments," he said speaking about the investment last week.

Ben Hurley, chief executive of Plynk-backer the NDRC, said the company "has positioned itself at the forefront of social payments and has created a service which eliminates the complexities when sharing expenses amongst family, friends and colleagues".

He said the deal "will help them achieve continued growth both here in Ireland and into new international markets in the future".