Bling Nation has just raised a $20 million Series B round of funding from Balderton Capital. The company develops payment systems for mobile phones. Since Bling Nation launched in 2007, the company has raised a total of $33 million in total funding. Bling Nation partners specifically with local banks for offering secure payment transactions.

Bank customers put a chip on their mobile phone that allows them to make a payment directly from their checking account to merchants or stores. Local merchants are also given card machines that scan the chips on the mobile devices. Bling Nation is being tested heavily in Colorado Springs and Woodland Park in Colorado. Bling makes revenue by taking a commission for each transaction. Merchants end up paying less in fees to Bling Nation than credit card purchases making it an appealing transaction option.

Bling Nation was founded by Meyer Malka ad Wenceslao Casares. In the last round of funding, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Meck and Camp Ventures participated. Bling Nation is based in Palo Alto, California.

“We got involved in an exciting and competitive investment in Bebo because we believed in the social networking space and the fact that Bebo was positioned for exponential growth,” stated Barry Maloney, a partner at Balderton.  “Our expectations for Bebo have been exceeded in a relatively short period of time, and today’s transaction with AOL has delivered an exceptional return on our original investment in 2006.”

The venture capital firm, Balderton Capital has sold off their shares of Bebo to AOL today.  The amount that they will earn from the deal is $140 million.  This is about 9 times the return on investment that they made into the social network 2 years ago.  Balderton plugged in $15 million to Bebo in May 2006.  Balderton also invested in MySQL, which sold to Sun Microsystems for $1 billion.

Balderton is based in London, England.  Balderton also invested in Betfair, Codemasters, Habbo Hotel, Setanta Sports.  Balderton used to be the European arm of Benchmark Capital.