Socialwise Raises $3.5M for Teen Prepaid Card and ‘Bill My Parents’ Payment Solution

San Diego-based Socialwise, which has developed payment solutions that target teens and their parents, has raised nearly $3.5 million of a planned $4 million offering, according to a recent regulatory filing. As I reported a couple of years ago, former Gateway computer executive Jim Collas founded Socialwise, which trades on the Nasdaq over-the-counter market as SCLW, after shutting down the San Diego incubator Idea Edge.

In a statement issued by the company last week, Collas says, “This round of funding is intended to allow us to fully engage our national marketing and customer acquisition programs for our premium products and to quickly gain momentum in the marketplace.”

Socialwise says it plans to announce a partnership with “a significant online entertainment service company” as part of a marketing strategy that targets both teens’ strong desire for spending independence and a prepaid card for teens. The company says it’s also planning targeted advertising, pro athlete-endorsed projects, social media outlets, consumer events and sponsorships that will continue through next year.

Socialwise says its Flagship product offering is an online payment solution for young people, called “BillMyParents,” which actually provides a range of payment options. The choices include giving parents complete control over their teens’ purchases, a MasterCard prepaid gift card, to simply enabling parents to monitor their teens’ spending. Socialwise says its Web-based technology facilitates communications between parents and their children and helps to teach financial responsibility.

The New York-based Maxim Group acted as placement agent in the stock offering.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.