CHEQ, which identifies itself as the world first social payments platform, has raised $8m in its seed funding round.
WestRiver Group served as the lead investor. The capital also came from Harvard’s Yard Ventures, Flamingo Capital and other investors.
CHEQ claims to be the first mobile payments platform for the restaurant and hospitality industry to enable social purchasing and gifting, allowing users to pay for and send drinks to one another for on-premise consumption.
Alongside social purchasing and gifting, CHEQ handles all forms of on-premise payments. These include mobile, self-service kiosks, traditional point of sale terminals and back-end payment processing.
Since it was founded in 2021, CHEQ has signed several long-term agreements with professional sports teams in key geographies. Its partners include the Miami Marlins, Miami Dolphins, Washington Commanders, Tennessee Titans, and University of Washington Huskies.
CHEQ CEO Thomas Lapham said, “We’ve been inspired by the stories of how users are engaging creatively with the social purchasing and gifting features of CHEQ. Friends sending a beverage remotely for a birthday, parents sending their college student a latte to help study for finals, or a bachelorette receiving presents from her friends who couldn’t attend the party the variety of use cases has exceeded our expectations.
?This validates our mission of creating a more engaging consumer experience built around the commonality of sharing a human connection with people you care about when you can’t be there in person.”
In other PayTech news, Wayapay, a remittance service tailored to the needs of immigrants from Africa, has launched its full-service digital bank and money transfer app. The mobile remittance app enables people to send money with a better exchange rate and zero fees.
It currently supports free money transfers from the US to Kenya. It plans to support more countries in the near future.
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