University payments startup Get raises $3.4 million

Get, the Sydney-based university payments startup formerly known as Qnect, has raised $3.4 million in a funding round led by Vertex Ventures and Click Ventures.

Cofounded by Daniel Liang and Ryan Cheng, Get’s online platform looks to help those running university clubs and societies easily plan and collect payments for ticketed events, and sell memberships and merchandise.

Launched in 2016, the startup reported that it now has 500 organisations using its platform; the majority of these are in Australia, however Get last year launched in Hong Kong and recently went live in Singapore.

According to Liang, the funding will go towards further expanding the startup’s footprint, product development, and building out its teams in each market.

“This is a very exciting time for us. Get is targeting an untapped market of students whose spending behaviours and expectations are vastly different to the generations before them,” he said.   

“This cohort is inherently social, and Get is really one of the only services that leverages this insight as the basis for a payments platform. This generation wants to buy what their friends are buying, and being able to provide that level of transparency on a scalable digital platform is incredibly powerful.”

Carman Chan, managing partner at Click Ventures, an early backer of Spotify, said the firm was impressed with Get’s ability to execute, attention to detail, and learning speed.  

“More and more selling will be automated and moved to mobile. The social element of Get’s model is the missing piece of the current offline to online selling model. We believe startups need to be able to execute but also be nimble enough to pivot when the opportunity arises, and the Get team definitely demonstrates these qualities, which will see it grow quickly,” Chan said.

Get is one of a number of startups targeting the university market.

Also working in this space is Canberra-founded QPay, first launched as an app through which university students could easily buy things like club memberships, textbooks, tickets to parties, and other merchandise from university societies, the merchants.

QPay is now looking to move into the digital bank space, earlier this year partnering with MasterCard to launch a debit card for students.

Backed by a Corporate Authorised Representative with an Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL), the card has students link money from another bank account, with QPay partnering with various retailers to offer cashback and other rewards when used in store.

Liang too is looking beyond university club space for Get, saying the startup’s growth potential inspired the recent rebrand.

“One of the main reasons we changed our name to ‘Get’ was that it brought us closer to our mission of helping students get their hands on the things they want. Often, the things they want are heavily inspired and dictated by the actions of their peers, which is why the social aspect underpinning this platform is so important,” he said.

Image: Daniel Liang. Source: Supplied.