UPDATED: March 29, 2016 at 11:34 a.m.

An app co-founded by a Syracuse University student was recently honored at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Festival in a competition for startup companies.

ChaChing, a peer-to-peer payment and money transfer application, won second place in the Student Startup Madness (SSM) tournament in Austin, Texas, on March 14.

ChaChing was co-founded by Seth Samowitz, a dual major at the School of Information Studies and the Martin J. Whitman School of Management at SU. ChaChing is the first mobile keyboard application that allows users to send and receive money through all messaging applications, such as iMessage and Skype, Samowitz said.

Samowitz said sending money to friends should be as simple as texting someone.

He added that one of the reasons ChaChing is integrated into the keyboard is because people spend more than three hours per day on messaging applications. He said it would be convenient for people to send money to others without using different apps.

“You can go ahead and send the money without leaving the conversation,” Samowitz said, adding that finishing in second place is a “milestone that proves the viability of the idea and product.”

He added that winning the competition is a stepping stone for ChaChing.

“We can’t take it for granted as there is still a lot of work to do,” Samowitz said.

Sean Branagan, director of the Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at SU, established the center and the Student Startup Madness competition in 2011. Branagan said he hopes to encourage more college students to do something beyond campus and provide the opportunity for them to get in the spotlight.

Branagan said the startup competition began in December with 64 teams and narrowed in January to 32 teams. In the final round, the “Entrepreneurial Eight” pitched business concepts to a panel of successful entrepreneurs, technologists and investors. ChaChing placed second out of those eight teams.

“The SXSW Interactive Festival is the epicenter of what is happening in the Internet, interactive digital media and every industry that is disrupting,” Branagan said. “The SXSW holds contests that are never ever going to be easy.”

Branagan said no team from SU made it into the final round in previous years. This year SU had ChaChing and Fresh U, an online publication for freshmen, make it to the “Entrepreneurial Eight,” Branagan said.

“Syracuse had the highest number of applicants for the first time ever,” Branagan said. “This really helps because we are seeing the best of a more active campus.”

Samowitz said the market for peer-to-peer transfers is exploding. In 2015, $16 billion in transactions were made on mobile devices. By 2018, there will be more than $86 billion in mobile peer-to-peer transactions, he said.

Sandy Khaund, the head coach for Samowitz’s team and one of the three judges at the competition, said he was very impressed with Samowitz and the application.

“He has a lot of energy, and a lot of enthusiasm and excitement for the product,” Khaund said. “The product itself is very innovative and clever.”

Samowitz previously worked for Square, a mobile payment company, which Khaund said helped him gain deep knowledge in the financial industry. Khaund said he appreciates Samowitz’s creativity and the domain expertise he has at a young age.

“He has a strong passion for startups and he’s got lots of great ideas,” said Michael D’Eredita, an assistant professor of practice in the iSchool who has taught Samowitz and often talks to him outside of class about startup ideas.

Samowitz said his team will launch the beta version of ChaChing in the coming weeks, and added that it will be available both on iOS and Android devices. He said he hopes that ChaChing can become the leading peer-to-peer payment application in the country.

CORRECTION: In a previous version of this article, the difference between the amount of transactions and the number of transactions was misstated. In 2015, $16 billion transactions were made on mobile devices. By 2018, there will be more than $86 billion in mobile peer-to-peer transactions. The Daily Orange regrets this error.

Published on March 28, 2016 at 11:59 pm

Contact Chieh: chchen@syr.edu