Courtesy of an investment from Texas Ventures and featuring additional participation from angel investors in the U.S., Digital Retail Apps is C$1 million (US$770,000) closer to its goal of going global.

Digital Retail Apps is the company behind SelfPay, the mobile payments technology that alleviates the most overlooked pain point of the in-person payment process: the queue. “We are seeing more and more retailers shift their focus to an app-based payments model, which eliminates the checkout line, as opposed to a tap and pay model,” DRA founder and CEO Wendy MacKinnon Keith said.

“App and pay is much more convenient to the shopper because it saves them time – they don’t have to wait in line to pay,” she explained.

Pictured: Digital Retail Apps founder and CEO Wendy MacKinnon Keith demonstrating SelfPay at FinovateSpring 2014 in San Jose.

In order to make this work for merchants as well as consumers, Digital Retail Apps has built a platform that integrates directly into the merchant’s POS system, and provides a range of payment methods including all major credit cards, credit card branded debit cards, as well as Apple Pay and PayPal. The platform is available as a white label app for individual merchants, a multi-merchant app for mall operators, as well as licensed and integrated into a current mobile shopping app.

The new capital is the first non-founder, non-friends and family investment in the Toronto-based e-commerce startup. Scott Crist, Texas Ventures CEO, called Digital Retail Apps a leader in the mobile payment space and praised both the company’s IP portfolio and “partnership-based approach (that) brings many parties together to create a consistent shopping flow across retailers, payment processors, and payment types.”

Digital Retail Apps was featured earlier this year in Toronto Star’s coverage of Canada’s first financial technology cluster launched by MaRS. The company also earned a mention in a Financial Post column as an example of the “great strides” in store for digital payments in 2015.

Founded in March 2012 and headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Digital Retail Apps demonstrated its SelfPay technology at FinovateSpring 2014 in San Jose.