A pair of Greater Cincinnati startups announced a new partnership this week that could help break down barriers between schools and families and the way the groups interact about money.
Over-the-Rhine's Abre and Evendale’s Pay Theory, two of the region’s most promising startups, have joined together to offer a payments-oriented app for families of K-12 students to help facilitate education-related expenses and other household management functions.
The partnership was a natural fit, both companies said in release. Abre is a K-12 administration platform provider, and Pay Theory provides payment solutions for school districts, child care centers and families who may be un- or underbanked. Through the partnership, Pay Theory will power Abre's new payments app, which it said will give families and partners a “financially inclusive and secure payments experience fully integrated with student records and other district systems to increase automation and efficiency.”
"Abre and Pay Theory are poised to change how schools and families interact about money,” Eric Fulkert, Pay Theory co-founder and CTO, said in a statement. "Together we believe we are creating a better experience for all stakeholders.”
Some school systems see as much as 30% of school fees going uncollected, Pay Theory said. School districts can close that gap by “paving the way for the roughly one-third of U.S. families that are underbanked,” or families with a bank account but who rely on check-cashing services or payday loans versus credit cards for expenses.
The platform will help families of K-12 students facilitate education-related payments and other household management functions. Using a credit or debit card, checking account or Pay Theory's digitized cash payment tool, families can access the Abre/Pay Theory platform to make school-related payments like field trips, sports fees or advanced placement-type tests.
Families that prefer to pay with cash can select that as an option in the Abre platform during the checkout process. They receive a barcode with encoded information unique to their transaction. They then take that barcode to one of more than 65,000 retailers throughout the U.S.
After the cashier scans the code, the user can complete the transaction in cash. The Pay Theory platform executes the transaction immediately, and Abre records receipt of payment for students and families.
Abre also supports partners outside of school. The platform can help manage programs such as corporate matching, school fundraisers and carnivals, and cash functions such as raffle tickets and silent auction bids.
"Abre is in a unique position to change how schools manage parent relationships,” Fulkert said. “Our partnership will help schools increase financial inclusion through better communication about money, and ease of access for banked and unbanked families alike."
Not only is the partnership a natural fit, but company leaders said the timing also made sense. Abre, founded in 2018 and backed by CincyTech, recently named a new CEO, Cincinnati native James Stoffer, as its business moves into another round of significant growth. Pay Theory, meanwhile, is newer to the startup scene – it went live with its first school district in 2020 – but has gained quick traction. Besides Fulkert, who founded and exited Soundstr, a music tech company, co-founders include Brad Hoeweler, who founded and exited Skipjack, an Internet payment company, and Aron Price and Pablo Martinez. Pay Theory was named in one of Cincy Inno’s “Startups to Watch” for 2021.
“Pay Theory immediately earned our trust by proving the team gets the K-12 space," Stoffer said in the release. “We're excited as it helps us get even closer to better supporting student success."
