Report: Payleven, A European Square From Rocket Internet, Gets Funding From NEA, Holzbrinck, Ru-Net

With Square yet to enter Europe, there is an increasing amount of activity from would-be competitors looking to fill the same niche using dongles on smartphones to enable card payments. The latest comes from Payleven,?which has picked up "tens of millions" of euros in funding from New Enterprise Associates, Holtzbrinck Ventures and the Russian VC ru-net, according to an unconfirmed report in Deutsche Startups. Payleven is part of?Rocket Internet, the incubator/investment vehicle from the Samwer brothers (known for developing clones of popular U.S. services like Groupon -- and then selling them as part of inorganic growth plays). Rocket Internet is famously secretive about who invests in its projects and how much, so it's been hard to pin this one down. The responses we've received have been not flat-out denials, and with a wide berth might even read them as indirect confirmations. But they're thin on detail: "Unfortunately we cannot provide any more colour on that [news]," Holzbrinck told TechCrunch. "I think you?re very well aware of Rocket?s policy on disclosing information to the press."?"As?usual Rocket is not very open minded about publishing information about the funding," another person close to the deal said. Rocket Internet, meanwhile, has also declined to comment directly but has opened the kimono a little to outline Payleven's strategy going forward.

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