TrialPay Announces Series B Financing

As of this release, TrialPay will have 3,000 individual merchant partners and 4 strategic partnerships with premier e-commerce platforms (Kagi, asknet AG, E-junkie and Mercantec).

Over the last year, TrialPay has emerged as a leading alternative payment platform—the only payment method that increases a shopper’s willingness to pay. TrialPay’s patent-pending Offer-Matching Technology pairs shoppers with ideal offers from premier advertisers, including FTD, Gap, American Express, RealNetworks, eBay and 2,000 others, ensuring that every customer can find an offer that compels him or her to purchase.

“TrialPay represents a new era in online payments," said Danny Rimer, General Partner at Index Ventures. "With TrialPay, every customer can find an offer that gets him or her over the payment barrier, reducing shopping cart abandonment by uniting advertisers with customers at the point of purchase. The idea of a payment method that takes advantage of what the Web has to offer was so compelling that we were immediately drawn to invest.”

Index Ventures was part of a Series B that included Atomico Ventures and former PayPal executives. The Series A round included Battery Ventures, Ron Conway and Bob Pittman.

Alex Rampell, TrialPay’s co-founder and CEO, attracted the attention of VCs with a new platform that lets customers pay…and get paid. The customer gets his or her original product for free by trying or buying one advertiser offer.

“There is no reason for a shopper to abandon his or her cart,” said Rampell. “Every shopper is in the market for something. If a customer can’t be convinced to complete a purchase, TrialPay provides thousands of other ways to pay—and get the original product for free as part of the deal.”

For example, if a customer isn’t quite sold on a software title, he or she could get that software for free by sending flowers from FTD.com, signing up for Blockbuster Total Access or buying $50 worth of clothes at Gap.com. TrialPay pays for the software using revenue (CPA) from the advertiser, and the customer gets a free license. Everyone wins.

TrialPay appeals to software publishers as a means of converting trial customers and boosting sales through creative marketing initiatives (e-mail campaigns, exit and uninstall messaging, direct payment method, etc…). TrialPay recently launched an exclusive free software promotion on CNET Download.com: http://www.download.com/freesoftware. Visitors can select their preferred advertising offer and get a free license from over a dozen of the most popular downloads, including titles from McAfee, AVG, PC Tools, Webroot, WinZip, Lavasoft, Trend Micro and many more.

The appeal of TrialPay’s alternative payment model extends beyond software to attract more than 3,000 merchants spanning the games, publishing, online services and retail industries. TrialPay merchants include The Wall Street Journal, Skype, Fandango, JDate, Trillian, Eidos Interactive (Tomb Raider), PlayFirst and thousands more.

“TrialPay dramatically increases conversion rates for online merchants across all verticals,” said Roger Lee, General Partner at Battery Ventures, a Series A and B investor. “TrialPay empowers shoppers with thousands of payment options, revolutionizing the way we pay. The funding Battery Ventures and partners provided will ensure that TrialPay continues to lead and innovate in the alternative payments industry.”