Exclusive: YC-backed FamPay in talks to raise up to $8 Mn from Sequoia and Lightspeed

FamPay - a family-friendly digital payment app where parents can send money to their children like a photo or text on chat. It's a little known early-stage startup backed by Y Combinator and WeWork Labs. 

Now, the less than the six-months-old firm is also attracting institutional investors. According to three Entrackr sources, it's in advance conversation with Sequoia Capital and several angels including former WhatsApp Business Chief Neeraj Arora.

Arora participation in the round may happen via Venture Highway. He's one of the limited partners in the fund.

"Sequoia is investing about $4 million while remaining $1 million will come from angels. The contour of the transaction has been almost finalised, and if nothing goes wrong from here, then it will be announced within a month," said two sources on condition of anonymity.

Sources also emphasised that Lightspeed is also in conversation to invest around $3 million in FamPay. However, it's in early talks. "If Lightspeed also joins, the round can go up to $8 million," added sources.

Entrackr's query to Sequoia and Lightspeed did not elicit an immediate response. We will update the post as and when they respond. Responding to our queries, Sambhav Jain, co-founder, FamPay said that the report is speculative and inaccurate.

Founded by Kush Taneja and Sambhav Jain, FamPay allows a user to pay online and in-store through the mobile app, debit card and UPI. Focusing on a close group or family, FamPay can be used to split bills and send money without any paperwork, hidden charges and condition for minimum balance.

FamPay attempts to build the future of banking and finance for children in India. It was a part of Y Combinator's Summer batch 2019. The startup targets 250 million teenagers aged below 18, who aren't able to access digital payments and bound to take physical cash from their parents.

In a nutshell, it's a shared account for family, just like a family plan offered by telecom companies. Adults can use it individually.

Taneja and Jain have recently completed their engineering from IIT Roorkee. While Taneja has worked as product design and intern at ShareChat, Bolo and PhonePe, Jain was a part of the product team at Hotstar and AEON Learning.

Product-wise, FamPay comes with a simple UI/UX to suit the audience using any payment app for the first time. It is also launching FamPay cards powered by Visa soon.

To get premium access, users have to invite their family members/friends and get them signed up to join the waitlist. FamPay users can also refer the app to earn virtual coins to avail offers, deals and rewards.