PayNearMe Expands Footprint with Family Dollar Deal, Raises $20 Million (Feb. 10, 2014)
Hot on the heels of a fresh infusion of capital, PayNearMe, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based cash transaction network, last week announced a deal with Family Dollar, enabling consumers to use cash for online purchases, payments toward loans and rent, among other transactions, at the discount retailer’s more than 8,000 locations. PayNearMe has existing agreements with 8,600 7-Eleven and ACE Cash Express locations.
“Our footprint hasn’t been quite robust enough. There were some [areas of the U.S.] where we didn’t have good coverage,” PayNearMe CEO Danny Shader tells Paybefore. “If you were a regional [client] in a place we had coverage, it wasn’t an issue. If you were a national player, you had to pick between our technology and somebody else’s footprint. Now we have arguably one of the best footprints … on a nationwide basis.”
When a consumer wants to pay a bill, for example, to a payee that’s connected to PayNearMe’s platform, the consumer takes the barcode printed on his bill or sent to his smartphone by PayNearMe to a participating retailer, where the code is scanned. The consumer pays in cash and the payee’s account is updated in less than a minute, according to the company.
PayNearMe also announced last week that it had closed a $20 million round of financing led by GSV Capital, and that the new funds will be used to continue expansion into existing categories while launching into new vertical markets. August Capital, Khosla Ventures, Maveron and True Ventures also participated in the round.
“Our business is growing quickly; we tripled our payment volume between 2012 and 2013. The bulk of that volume came out of rent payments, payments to municipal governments, lending institutions … and transportation companies,” says Shader, who adds that the company has set its sights on additional industries, including health care, banking and child support payments.
