Bill Payment App Papaya Raises $50 Million To Pay Your Parking Ticket

Keerthi Vedantam

Keerthi Vedantam is a bioscience reporter at dot.LA. She cut her teeth covering everything from cloud computing to 5G in San Francisco and Seattle. Before she covered tech, Keerthi reported on tribal lands and congressional policy in Washington, D.C. Connect with her on Twitter, Clubhouse (@keerthivedantam) or Signal at 408-470-0776.

Bill Payment App Papaya Raises $50 Million To Pay Your Parking Ticket
Photo by Andras Vas on Unsplash

If you’ve ever gotten a parking ticket in Las Vegas, you’ve probably heard of Papaya.

The fintech company based in Los Angeles can be found on every parking ticket in Las Vegas to make it easier for people to pay their fine.


The company has long been in the business of advertising itself with some of the worst financial news a person can get: a parking ticket, an unexpected hospital bill, or a forgotten utilities fee. The goal is to make hard-to-track paper bills easier to pay. On Wednesday, it announced it raised a $50 million Series B round from Bessemer Ventures with additional funds from the likes of Sequoia Capital and Sound Ventures.

“Finances is the number one cause of stress for most families more than anything else. And the second keep being bills, especially paper bills, is a significant component of that stress,” said Josh Mittler Papaya’s head of business operations. “We've seen that massive opportunity to ease financial burdens and create a way for Americans to easily pay bills. It is really what led to the founding.”

The company was founded by Patrick Kann and Jason Metzler in 2016 after Kann moved to the U.S. from Brazil. Brazil’s bill pay system is one online centralized portal, and paper bills came with a scannable barcode that make the process of paying paper and online bills relatively seamless. By comparison, the U.S. has multiple fragmented systems for paying rent, utilities and for health care services that are scattered across online portals and mailing checks.

Through the Papaya app, users can take a picture of their bill and type in the amount they want to pay and fulfill that bill payment as long as the end user has a mailing address or an online payment portal. Papaya doesn’t need to have a partnership or integration with any specific bill, and users don’t need to log in or connect to those bill payment systems.

Using optical character recognition, the software enables the app to look at every bill — no matter what the format is — and recognize each piece of information. You could, theoretically, rip up your bill and rearrange the pieces, and the software would still recognize your name, address and the bill amount.

This gives Papaya the flexibility to pay all kinds of bills for all kinds of companies, no matter what they look like.

“We increase their volume of payments that go through Papaya versus their traditional means of web portals, paper checks or phone calls,” Mittler said. “We help businesses get paid faster and more often.”

Papaya uses user data to create new products. It also reserves the right to share personal information with third party service providers, per its privacy statement.

The raise will go towards expanding Papaya’s 80-person team (particularly in the product and engineering departments) and expanding its partnerships. The company has partnered with large municipalities and health care organizations that will direct people to pay via Papaya on their paper bill statements.

Correction: An earlier version incorrectly stated that Las Vegas tickets include QR codes on their parking tickets. The story has also been updated to add the correct link to its privacy policy and clarify the policy.

https://twitter.com/KeerthiVedantam
keerthi@dot.la
LA Tech Week 2025: Sunday’s Event Lineup

Here's the Sunday, October 19th lineup for LA Tech Week 2025, organized by location so you can easily explore events that fit your goals and schedule. Dive in and see what’s happening near you!

ARTS DISTRICT

3:00 PM

BEL AIR

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BURBANK

6:30 PM – 9:30 PM

CULVER CITY

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4:30 PM – 7:30 PM

INGLEWOOD

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  • Spinovation: The Future Is Femme, The Future is Frequency: See Details Here
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KOREATOWN

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MARINA DEL REY

12:00 PM

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    Sawubona

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3:45 PM

4:00 PM – 7:30 PM

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6:00 PM

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7:00 PM

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7:00 PM

8:00 PM

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10:00 AM

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2:00 PM

CENTURY CITY

7:00 PM – 10:00 PM

CULVER CITY

9:00 AM – 5:00 PM

10:00 AM – 11:30 AM

1:00 PM

DTLA

7:00 PM

  • {MiniMax x Nakid x SkyPortalx}: TECH/MOTION/MUSIC/ART: See Details Here
    MiniMax (Hailuo AI)

10:00 PM – 2:00 AM

EL SEGUNDO

10:00 AM

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4:00 PM

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7:00 PM

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MARINA DEL REY

8:30 AM

12:00 PM – 3:00 PM

5:00 PM

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9:00 AM

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9:30 AM

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10:30 AM – 11:30 AM

11:00 AM – 2:15 PM

12:00 PM – 5:00 PM

1:00 PM – 5:00 PM

1:30 PM

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    Santa Monica Striking, Luri Inc.

2:00 PM

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    Smart Times

2:00 PM

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    Startup Village, Sanctuary

3:00 PM – 4:00 PM

4:00 PM – 6:30 PM

  • Just Do It?: Helping Founders Perform Like Olympians: See Details Here
    Elite Psychology Group

5:00 PM

6:00 PM

6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

6:00 PM

6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

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    Villa Kitchen, Airble, We Speak Dance, Techstars San Francisco

7:00 PM

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    Feathr, Los Angeles Fun Events

7:00 PM

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    DeepMyst

TOPANGA CANYON

5:00 PM – 8:30 PM

  • Walk&Jam: Use AI to make art while hiking Topanga Canyon: See Details Here
    Formhaus llc, Wonderland Immersive Design

TORRANCE

1:00 PM – 4:00 PM

  • Crunches & Conversations Presented by The Differentials and KIS Training Studios: See Details Here
    The Differentials, KIS Training Studios

VENICE

1:00 PM – 4:30 PM

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    Medusa AI

VENICE BEACH

8:00 AM – 12:00 PM

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9:30 PM

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6:00 PM

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BEVERLY HILLS

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1:00 PM – 2:00 PM

2:00 PM – 3:00 PM

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4:00 PM

6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

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8:00 PM

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BRENTWOOD

8:00 AM

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CARSON

11:45 AM

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8:00 AM – 6:00 PM

11:00 AM

1:00 PM

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8:00 PM – 12:00 AM

EL SEGUNDO

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5:00 PM – 8:00 PM

HOLLYWOOD

10:00 AM

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9:00 PM

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8:00 AM

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10:00 AM

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12:30 PM

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4:00 PM – 6:00 PM

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11:30 AM – 1:30 PM

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PLAYA VISTA

9:00 AM

12:00 PM – 2:00 PM

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SANTA MONICA

7:00 AM – 8:30 AM

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7:30 AM

8:45 AM – 10:45 AM

9:00 AM – 11:00 AM

  • Slash Burn Rates & Scale Your Startup: See Details Here
    Arizona Commerce Authority (ACA)

9:00 AM

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    The PORT GLOBAL, GLOBAL PORTAL INSTITUTE

9:30 AM – 11:30 AM

10:00 AM – 1:00 PM

  • The Enduring Value of Inclusive Capital: See Details Here
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10:00 AM – 12:00 PM

10:30 AM

11:30 AM – 1:00 PM

  • Advisors to Investors Lunch: Venture Capital for enterprise leaders: See Details Here
    Collinear Capital, Worlds

12:00 PM

  • Powerhouse Capital & a16z speedrun Investor Lunch Mixer: See Details Here
    Powerhouse Capital, a16z, speedrun

2:00 PM

  • Where Robotics Meets Heart - Embedding Family Values in a Future with AI: See Details Here
    Trove, Puerto Rico Blockchain Association, MindfulBytes

2:00 PM

3:00 PM

3:00 PM

3:00 PM

  • Workshop: Create An Enterprise Chatbot and Unlock the 70% of Data Data You’re Not Using: See Details Here
    Aparavi

4:00 PM

5:00 PM – 10:00 PM

5:30 PM

5:30 PM – 9:30 PM

6:00 PM – 8:30 PM

  • USC Alumni Founders & Investors: See Details Here
    USC Alumni Entrepreneurship Network, Techstars

6:00 PM

  • Social Currency Series/Greenlit presents PitchPop: See Details Here
    Social Currency Series, Greenlit

6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

6:30 PM

6:30 PM – 10:00 PM

6:30 PM

  • Lets get the LA Bioeconomy brewing: See Details Here
    Founders, Friends & Fermentation, Saku Biosciences

7:00 PM – 11:30 PM

7:00 PM – 10:00 PM

7:00 PM – 10:00 PM

7:00 PM

7:00 PM

  • Liquid Equity 2: The Premiere Gathering for Founders, Creator
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7:00 PM

7:00 PM

  • For the Love of Tech | Speed Dating for Tech Professionals: See Details Here
    Feathr, Los Angeles Fun Events

7:00 PM

SOUTH LA

3:00 PM

TORRANCE

9:00 AM – 11:00 AM

  • The Future of Space & Security Panel: See Details Here
    Northwood Space, Anduril Industries, Impulse Space, Astranis

VENICE

9:00 AM – 10:45 AM

9:00 AM – 11:30 AM

11:00 AM

11:30 AM – 2:30 PM

12:30 PM

  • Creative Partners: Human + AI Storytelling: See Details Here
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2:00 PM – 3:45 PM

5:00 PM

  • EarthHouse: Critical Minerals, Mobility & Modern Power: See Details Here
    The Strategye Group, Alpha Sierra One

6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

6:00 PM

  • Pizza+Soda: *Invite Only*
    Schmoozd , The KINN

7:00 PM

VENICE BEACH

2:00 PM – 6:30 PM

5:00 PM

8:30 PM – 2:00 AM

VIRTUAL (LA)

2:30 PM – 4:00 PM

3:00 PM

  • Government of Alberta: ProcurementAsCode // Done in 60 Seconds: See Details Here
    Government of Alberta

4:00 PM

  • Stop Hitting Yourself 🥊: See Details Here
    Stop Hitting Yourself, HOWDY, Company Policy, Snowbird Global

WEST HOLLYWOOD

3:00 PM – 6:00 PM

6:00 PM

WESTSIDE

5:00 PM

5:30 PM – 8:30 PM


For updates or more event information, visit the official Tech Week calendar.

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