Switch continues to raise cash to build out its platform that helps people manage their credit card information online.
The Seattle startup has reeled in another $400,000 from angel investors, bringing its total funding to date to nearly $2 million.
Founded in 2014 by veteran entrepreneurs that pioneered “Internet-in-a-Box” technology back in the 90s, Switch develops financial-related technology. Its first product is a credit card updater for online accounts, giving customers an efficient way of keeping their payment methods up-to-date, along with better visibility of their cards.
The idea is to help people easily update online payment information on various websites when replacing a credit card that was lost, stolen, or expired. This can be a frustrating and time-consuming process that is becoming more common with the increasing number of online services people are using on a daily basis that requires credit card information, from Amazon.com to Uber to Spotify to Netflix.
Switch just launched early access to its free service last month.
“Today, credit and debit cards are the dominant payment solutions for consumers,” Switch CEO Chris Hopen said in a statement. “Switch is the first ever consumer payment solution that automates both the challenge of secure account access and the ‘card on file’ problems users face every day.”
Switch also offers end-to-end encryption, two-factor authentication, and additional features as part of its security offerings.
Hopen founded Switch with former colleague David Pool. The founders previously worked together at Spry, a company that sold Internet connection software packages which allowed people to surf the web using a computer running Microsoft Windows. Spry sold to Compuserve for $100 million in 1995, the “largest acquisition yet in the Internet business” according to a New York Times article published at the time of the sale.
Pool was later CEO of a Bellevue-based enterprise content routing solution provider called DataChannel, a position he held from 1998 to 2002. During that time, Pool also started a venture capital firm called XMLfund that invested in XML-based web services. Pool left XMLFund in 2012.
Hopen, meanwhile, left Spry in 1996 after the acquisition and eventually became the CTO at Aventail, a Seattle company that developed VPN technology. Aventail and DataChannel were business partners.
Hopen later founded a Seattle-based file-sharing startup called TappIn, which sold to GlobeScape for as much as $17 million in 2011.
Switch employs 10 people and just moved into new offices in Seattle’s Pioneer Square neighborhood.
