Italian-origin startup Volume has raised $6 million in a Seed round led by United Ventures, marking a significant milestone in its mission to disrupt the traditional online payment landscape. The company's innovative "account-to-account" (A2A) payment solution aims to reduce transaction fees for merchants and consumers, potentially saving them a substantial amount of money.

Currently, online merchants pay up to 8% of every sale to companies like PayPal, Apple Pay, and Stripe, costs that are often passed on to consumers. Volume's A2A payment solution, on the other hand, can cut transaction fees to below 1%. The startup's technology provides a seamless and user-friendly experience for both merchants and customers, addressing a long-standing pain point in the industry.

The A2A payment concept is not new, but its adoption has been slow due to technical challenges, consumer loyalty to traditional payment methods, and the need to offer services like refunds and multi-currency support. Volume's solution is designed to overcome these hurdles, providing a one-click checkout experience via an embeddable widget that is as easy to integrate as popular payment gateways like PayPal.

According to Simone Martinelli, founder and CEO of Volume, the company's goal is to eliminate intermediaries and simplify the payment process. "Imagine a traditional payment company like MasterCard, Visa, Stripe, or Checkout.com. They charge between 2% and 8% on everything that we buy online. We want to change that. There are no more intermediaries… there is the simple movement of money from your bank account to the account of the merchant," Martinelli explained.

Martinelli attributes Volume's success to its focus on user experience, which has been a major obstacle for A2A payment adoption. "The missing bit is the user experience," he said. "You need to prompt the user for their account number and sort code. But we compressed it all into one click. So we've managed to solve the user interface. Nobody else is really looking at the user experience. We think we've built the 'Apple Pay' of the account to account space."

Volume's infrastructure partner, Yapily, handles transactions, while authentication is facilitated through the user's banking app. The startup operates on a flat-rate pricing model, which sets it apart from traditional payment companies.

The fintech startup's progress is all the more notable given the challenges faced by other A2A payment companies. Fast, an A2A startup, collapsed after raising $150 million from Stripe and other investors, while Kevin, which raised $65 million, was declared insolvent this year.

Volume's recent funding round will be used to obtain FCA regulation in the UK and expand internationally. The company has also bolstered its team with key hires, including Justin Sebok, formerly Head of Product at Curve, Richard Frenken, formerly of iZettle, and Shannon Krishna from WorldRemit and Luno.

In a statement, Paolo Gesess, founder and managing partner at United Ventures, praised Volume's growth, saying, "Volume's ability to grow GMV by 163x over the past year validates the enormous opportunity ahead." The funding round also saw participation from Fabrick, the open finance platform part of the Sella Group, and existing investors Firstminute Capital, SeedX, and Haatch.

As the fintech landscape continues to evolve, Volume's innovative approach to online transactions is poised to make a significant impact on the industry. With its user-friendly A2A payment solution and flat-rate pricing model, the startup is well-positioned to capitalize on the enormous opportunity ahead, potentially disrupting the traditional payment ecosystem and saving merchants and consumers substantial amounts of money in the process.