Grand Rapids mobile wallet App, advantage, Snags $900K
Grand Rapids, MI-based totally mobile pockets app merit mentioned Monday that it has closed on $ 900,000 in seed funding. buyers have been formally undisclosed, but CEO Derik Lolli said they embrace begin garden and quite a lot of angel investors, most primarily based in West Michigan.
When Xconomy first coated advantage in February 2014, the company used to be hoping to make college fundraising more straightforward with an app that allowed users to donate a part of their reward card purchase to the college or charitable lead to of their option. in this day and age, merit is a pre-paid cell wallet app the place everyday transactions result in a donation or contribution.
users can nonetheless purchase e-reward playing cards from the app, and benefit then passes the discounted fee to no matter lead to the person chooses, together with colleges, non-income, or a non-public existence expense, like a personal loan or healthcare top class. benefit additionally has partnerships with big outlets like Amazon, goal, and entire foods to provide as much as 20 % of the purchase value again when shoppers use the benefit app on the point of sale.
“should you use our app, three to twenty p.c of the transaction goes to what matters—schools; healthcare prices; a loan,” Lolli said.
the company also bargains a white-label provider to assist firms create branded mobile pockets apps powered by way of merit. for instance, precedence health makes use of benefit’s expertise to supply its individuals savings on premiums and the ability to pay for different services and products related to a healthy way of life, like a flexible spending account or a fitness center membership.
Lolli said he’s expecting “a pair million” in revenues this year. When describing the potential his firm has to do something significant, he cites Ebates, a money-rebate shopping website online which was bought to Rakuten ultimate year for $ 1 billion. “With Ebates, users have to buy from a laptop computer,” Lolli stated. “With our app, it means that you can keep in retailers, and money comes again to you. we predict that’s a good price proposition.”
some other relevant deal is PayPal’s acquisition of Paydiant last month. Paydiant makes cellular-payment and rewards instrument for banks and shops. in the meantime, large corporations like Apple, Google, and Samsung had been pursuing various methods in payments.
merit, which has six full-time staffers, plans to use the brand new money to toughen the white-label part of the industry, and ramp up sales and advertising and marketing efforts. Lolli said thus far, lots of users have downloaded the merit app.
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