Kash Opens Up Payment Network & Announces $2 million in Seed Funding Led By Prominent Silicon Valley VCs

• Kash’s network processes transactions for 80% less than Apple Pay and Credit Cards
• Secures seed round led by experienced Silicon Valley Investors such as Draper Associates, Green Visor Capital, and Structure Capital (and additional angels)

San Francisco, California – November 4, 2014 – Today at Money2020, Kash Corp., an early stage mobile payments company, announced that: (1) its proprietary payment solution is now open to all retailers and retail customers, and (2) that it has received $2 million in seed funding from several notable venture capitalists and angel investors to help Kash develop, market and expand its proprietary mobile payments solution.

Over the past decade, as retail margins have gotten smaller, swipe fees, interchange and other charges related to accepting credit card payments have increased nearly 200% for merchants, especially smaller ones. To make matters worse, because the interchange payments infrastructure was built for pre-internet age, credit cards are inherently unsecure. This has led to numerous and expensive data breaches at a number of notable retailers and financial institutions.

Kash’s proprietary mobile payment solution avoids the traditional credit card network altogether by using the money already in a user’s bank account to directly pay for purchases without having to go through the credit card network. This enables merchants to increase checkout speed, track customer spending patterns and digitally promote loyalty programs straight to the end user. Equally important, Kash’s mobile payment solution avoids the fees and the inherent security flaws of traditional plastic cards. Kash’s merchants can clear transactions for 80% less than traditional credit card processing. Instead of charging merchants 3% or 4% per transaction, Kash processes payments for as little as 0.25% and many times for free. The solution is also completely free of charge for retail customer use.

“I come from a family of retailers and small business owners,” said Kaz Nejatian, CEO of Kash. “I understand what retailers go through when they see increasing credit card fees and more news about credit card fraud. I’m delighted to report that Kash is now ‘live’ and open to all merchants and retail users. We’re grateful to have the support of so many experienced and passionate investors. With Kash, we are on a mission to undermine the tyranny of high payment processing fees.”

The seed round also included angel investors Gang Wang (Alipay/Alibaba); Paul Buchheit (Google, Y Combinator); Alexis Ohanian (Reddit, Hipmunk, Y Combinator); Dalton Caldwell (imeem, App.net, Y Combinator); Aaron Harris (Tutorspree, Y Combinator); and Garry Tan (posterous, Y Combinator)

About Kash Corp.

Kash originally started in Canada. The company moved to San Francisco to join the Y Combinator summer 2014 batch. In the last few weeks, it’s managed to sign up dozens of retailers for its beta in the city as well as in the East Bay and in the San Jose/Mountain View area. Kash’s founding team includes a technical team with alumni from Morgan Stanley, Microsoft, OANDA and Amazon and a payment team that has advised some of the world’s largest financial institutions and retailers.