WePay picks up $1.65 million

Money collection and management service for groups launches in private beta

Having recently moved the company to Silicon Valley, company founders Bill Clerico and Rich Aberman hail from Boston College, where they accumulated all the inspiration for this startup, but none of the investments. So they moved west.

In the spirit of PayPal, WePay is a payment tool where anyone can easily setup an account to swap funds. WePay distinguishes itself from other payment platforms, however, in that it focuses specifically on groups handling funds. Aberman and Clerico found that, in college, tons of clubs, organizations, and associations needed a more efficient and transparent way to spend and receive money, reimburse members, and send out bills.

WePay wants to provide that way. And even though the site orients itself towards the need of groups of people, individual users should also find the site's services pretty useful.

All transactions and bills get handled electronically, whether the account be dealing with credit cards, echecks, or paper checks.

At the moment, WePay offers two different fee structures. The most basic, "Casual," which allows for WePay payments and echecks, has users paying $0.50 on each bill. The "Convenience" fee structure allows for credit card payments as well and accepts donations from non-members, but a charge of 3.5% is tacked onto bills (with a minimum amount being $0.50).

Finally, the company has set a maximum of $2000 on each transaction, at least for payments made from credit cards and bank accounts.

WePay's new funds will undoubtedly be put towards refining its service, while under private beta (invite-only). Everyone else should be able to use the site by early 2010.