Venture Capital Dispatch An inside look from VentureWire at high-tech starl-ups and their investors.
From Boston College Mascot To Venture-Backed CEO August 1,3,20IO,5:58 PM By Ty McMahan
ET
Highland Capital Partners General Partner Peter Bell used to teach a few classes at Boston College and would often ask professors to recommend the school's best and brightest for positions within his portfolio companies. One of the students who ended up at his doorstep was Bill Clerico.
"I knew
he was a good student and had good grades, but I asked Bill what else he does," Bell said, recounting an interyiew with Clerico for a position at
medical tourism company Healthbase Online Inc. "He said, 'Well, I don't know if you're a fan of BC sports, but I'm Baldwin."'
That's Baldwin The Eagle, mascot of Boston College athletics. Bell just happened to be a season ticket holder to just about every sport on campus.
Bell's response: "'You're hired."' Seven years later Bell has led a $7.5
million Series B for Clerico's WePay Inc.
and joined the board of directors. Go Eagles.
Clerico co-founded WePay with Rich Aberman in 2008 to make it easier for groups of people, such as roomates or friends ordering concert tickets together, to collect and manage payments online. When Clerico and Aberman met at Boston College, they were both heavily involved in a wide range of groups that needed to manage money. Clerico was the treasurer of multiple on-campus clubs and was tasked with hounding people to pay bills. Aberman found the same trouble when organizing a trip with friends. Released in April, WePay enables users to establish an FDlC-insured account for each group they want to manage. Users can accept payments from bank accounts and credit cards, accept donations and sell tickets. Payments can then be made from the account with a WePay prepaid Visa card, paper checks or online transfers.The Palo Alto, Calif.based company charges either a3.5%o transaction lee or a 50 cent transaction fee, depending on whether group members pay with a bank account or credit card. The company says it signed up nearly 2,000 groups last month alone and saw payment volume increase 80o% over the same period.
Highland Capital Partners led the new round, with participation from existing investor August Capital. The company previously raised about $ 1.7 million from individuals including PayPal founder Max Levchin, angel investor Ron Conway, YouTube co-founder Steve Chen, and Eric Dunn, the former Intuit Inc. chief technology officer and chief financial officer.
Bell said that with most personal checks being written person-to-person, he saw to-use model.
"They've carved out
a
really interesting multi-billion dollar niche," Bell said.
a
big opportunity in WePay's easy-