Payments app Lydia has raised a €3.6 Million venture round of funding from Xange Private Equity, Belcube, and the Duval family office for their mobile app which allows users to exchange money easily. The app has seen more than 50,000 downloads in 2014 alone, currently counting 60,000+ downloads, of which 85% are Millenials (aged 18-30), according to CEO & Co-founder Cyril Chiche.
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Born out of Chiche’s previous app DrinkOnMe, Lydia has fought its way through a very crowded space, getting users passing money back and forth via QR Code or direct user-to-user transfer. Other apps in this space include BPCE, who recently launched a Pay by Tweet feature, allowing twitter accounts to tweet each other a money transfer. Leetchi, too, has focused on creating money pools for gifts and contests; however, Lydia’s focus on becoming a replacement wallet has been ambitious, to say the least.
The company hopes to bring on board 300-500,000 users by the end of 2015 – their main marketing tactic has been offering users 1€ to give to a friend.