While the major payment players duke it out over the future of payments, an upstart start-up is showing there's still room for the up-and-comers. WePay, a company started in 2008 to create an online peer-to-peer and bill payment network, announced it saw significant growth in 2011. The company said it grew nearly ten times in revenue and achieved outstanding growth in user base and total payment volume. WePay said it expects similar results in 2012.

"2011 was a breakout year for the company," said Bill Clerico, CEO and co-founder of WePay, in a statement. "Just a few years ago we were a few folks with the goal of building the world's simplest online payments platform. Now WePay is growing faster than we ever imagined."

Clerico said the company is hiring like crazy and has some exciting things on tap.

According to the company's announcement, WePay grew revenue generated by its API by 15 time in 2011. Additionally, more than 25,000 people and organizations collected donations and over 250,000 invoices were paid through WePay in 2011. The company said it exited 2011 with a multi-million revenue run rate and a compounded monthly growth rate of 30 percent since its launch.

WePay made news early this year when it was used by several Occupy Wall Street organizations to raise funds. The company said more nearly $800,000 was raised from 806 accounts related to the OWS movement. 

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