Cashdrop

CASHDROP (getcashdrop.com) is a Chicago, Illinois-based mobile-first contactless commerce platform aimed at small business owners. The product lets a merchant create an online storefront from a phone in under 15 minutes and sell food, retail goods, services or ticketed event tickets without paying commissions or monthly fees. Merchants generate a custom store link that can be shared across social media channels, and buyers order through a web-based checkout that requires no app download or login.

Platform features include contactless ordering, automatic text message updates to customers, and sales analytics. The company positions the offering against legacy point-of-sale systems and marketplace models that take a large share of order revenue, and reports that merchants using its frictionless ordering flow see up to twice the dollar volume per transaction relative to cash and card payments through legacy systems.

The company was incorporated in January 2020 by founder and CEO Ruben Flores-Martinez and raised a $2.7 million seed round announced in August 2020. Third-party startup databases categorize it under e-commerce and payments and list an employee range of 11-50.

Founding story

Founder and CEO Ruben Flores-Martinez incorporated CASHDROP in January 2020. He immigrated from Mexico at age 13 and, despite finishing high school at the top of his class, could not gain college admission because of his immigration status; he taught himself to code using YouTube tutorials and later became a U.S. citizen. The company's stated mission to "empower the dreamers" by making it easier to start a business reflects that background.

Business model

The platform is free for merchants, with no commissions or monthly fees on contactless sales; revenue is generated instead from a small convenience fee charged on the consumer side of each transaction.

Consumer-side convenience fee applied to transactions processed through the platform, in place of merchant commissions or subscription fees.

Traction

Reported adoption by companies across the United States for online storefront creation and payment acceptance, and merchant transaction values of up to twice those of cash and card payments through legacy point-of-sale systems. Startup databases record a seed stage, $2.7 million in total funding and a headcount range of 11-50.

Latest developments

The most recent recorded activity in third-party startup databases is from May 2021; the getcashdrop.com domain currently serves Indonesian-language content about small-business tools and applications rather than the commerce platform.