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"Buyvite, a startup that makes it easier for groups of people (families, friends, obscure religious sects and whatnot) to organize and collect money for group purchases to cover a single transaction, has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from Rocket Ventures and a number of private investors.\r\n\r\nThe Toledo, Ohio-based social payments startup allows users to request money from friends and family for group purchases (think: a gift, event tickets, travel expenses etc). \r\n\r\nBuyvite group pay organizers can either send the collected funds directly to their bank account but they can also opt to generate a code that can be redeemed through an e-commerce cart at the point of sale.\r\n\r\nThis is what sets Buyvite apart from traditional p2p payment mechanisms.\r\n\r\nIn addition, Buyvite enables payment processing software providers to integrate a group payment option with its API.\r\n\r\nWith the fresh cash, Buyvite will build and improve existing software products for the Web and mobile platforms, work on securing new partnerships and develop additional sales and user acquisition channels.\r\n\r\nAccording to a recent interview Tech Cocktail did with Buyvite CEO Brandy Alexander-Wimberly, the company is looking to close an additional angel investment round of $500,000 in the next few weeks.\r\n\r\nBuyvite today also announced the addition of Bob Mallo (formerly President of Follett Educational Distribution Group) and Brad Bialas (most recently President of BluePay) to its management team. \r\n\r\nBuyvite advisors include Vijay Raghavendra of IBM, Balaji Gopinath of Turner Broadcasting and Poornima Vijayashanker of Bizeebee Software.\r\n\r\nThe startup was founded in 2011 and launched its service to the public in May 2012."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/08/20/buyvite-raises-funding-rocket-ventures-boost-group-payment-platform/>