Pollenizer-backed start-up Pygg has raised $600,000 in six months from a host of investors, including Yahoo!7 chief Rohan Lund and Tim Howard of Seven Network\u2019s Vividwireless.<\/p>\n
<\/span> <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Pygg \u2013 which enables one-to-one payments via Twitter and email \u2013 only went public with its app in October, but already rivals similar apps launched by the Commonwealth Bank and ANZ.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Pygg gets its name from the old English term for clay jars, which villages used to share and protect valuables. The \u201cpygg jar\u201d later turned into the \u201cpiggy bank\u201d.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n It is built around the idea that consumers will use social networks to make small payments, such as paying back a friend for a coffee.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The company makes its money by charging a small transaction fee when a user deposits funds into their account.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n It has raised $600,000 from Lund, Howard and Pollenizer itself. While Lund heads up Yahoo!7, Howard is the chief financial officer of Vividwireless, a division of Seven Group Holdings.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Pollenizer co-founder Mick Liubinskas is now turning his attention to Wooboard \u2013 another start-up from Pollenizer\u2019s portfolio. It recently received funds from angel investment group Elevation Capital.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Wooboard is a collaborative online human resource tool designed to boost workplace morale and improve productivity. This month, Liubinskas will travel to the United States to promote it.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m arriving in San Francisco on the 16th<\/sup> of February. I\u2019ll be looking to drive sales in the US by looking at distribution opportunities for Wooboard,\u201d Liubinskas says.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The news comes after Pollenizer announced in November it has closed a $1.1 million funding round after raising $500,000 in December 2010.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n That round of capital came from investors including Lend Lease chief Anthony Pascoe, Hitwise founder Adrian Giles, and Adrian Stone of Melbourne-based start-up incubator Angel Cube.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n A number of previous investors have also allocated funds to Pollenizer, including the founders of software firm Atlassian.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n According to Pollenizer co-founder Phil Morle, investor enthusiasm has been high for Pygg \u201cin a way we have not seen before\u201d, claiming Pygg \u201chas great things ahead of it\u201d.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe demand we have seen from an impressive array of investors\u2026 signals a renewed energy in the local start-up investment community,\u201d Morle says.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The funds will enable Pygg to grow and develop its operations to support other social networking platforms such as Facebook.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Pygg is also partnering with organisations such as UNICEF Australia to encourage charitable donations.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Howard, a founding investor in Pygg, says it is in a unique position to adapt and respond to the market because it is \u201cdelivering a product that is people-focused, bank-agnostic and fun to use\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pollenizer-backed start-up Pygg has raised $600,000 in six months from a host of investors, including Yahoo!7 chief Rohan Lund and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35468"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}