Person-to-Person Online Payments have been number 2 in our this years Business Plan Surgery and now one of the players in this nascent space ikobo got a first investment:

"ATLANTA -- iKobo, Inc. ( http://www.ikobo.com/ ), a global financial services company which provides online electronic payment and remittance services, today announced closing its first institutional round of funding. The company raised an undisclosed amount in a Series A financing to be used for product development and management recruitment. The round was led by Atlanta-based Total Technology Ventures, with participation from Council Ventures of Nashville and from existing investors Global Bank of Commerce, based in Antigua; iKobo chairman John Chamberlin; and iKobo co-founder Emeka Ohuche. The company was advised by Palo Alto based law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati with respect to the financing. WS Investments LLC, their investment arm, also participated in the round.

An August 2002 Celent Communications report cites the global person-to-person money transfer market at $150 billion, with 70% of customers engaging in repeat transactions. The global remittance industry has a 10% growth rate with card-based money transfer service models, the fastest-growing segment, projected to grab an 11% market share by 2006.

"iKobo is a high-growth company with a compound annual growth rate of over 400% between 2001 and 2004," said Emeka Ohuche, co-founder, iKobo, Inc. "Our investors recognize the huge potential and gains to be reaped by building out our technology infrastructure so we can rapidly scale to meet continued strong customer demand," he added."

Congratulations!