With the stock market in rally mode and up significantly from the Christmas Eve lows, micro-investing fintech startup Stash is celebrating the occasion with a $65 million fundraising.
The Series E was led by an unnamed private institutional investor and featured participation from current investors including Union Square Ventures and Breyer Capital. The new capital takes Stash’s total funding to $181.3 million. The company said it will use it to drive product growth as well as marketing.
Stash also announced this week that it was launching a new rewards program, leveraging its Stash debit card, that will provide users with fractional shares of stock whenever qualified purchases at publicly-held companies are made. The Stock-Back rewards program gives consumers a micro-investment in companies like Amazon and Chipotle every time they shop using the Stash card. For privately-held companies that do not have stock available, consumers will get their Stock-Back rewards in the form of fractional shares in a broad-based, global equity exchange-traded fund (ETF).
“During the testing period, we saw an overwhelming positive response from users as they pay ordinary bills like Netflix, and in returned received Netflix stock as well as access to dividends, educational resources and financial advice,” Stash co-founder and president Ed Robinson said.
Stash demonstrated the Stash Retire feature of its mobile-first, micro-investing platform at FinovateFall 2017. Stash Retire offers users a low-fee, self-directed Roth IRA account that can be invested in for as little as $100 to start. Users of Stash Retire can take advantage of all of the options available in their Stash Invest accounts, such as auto-invest and $5 investment minimums.
Named to the Forbes Fintech 50 last month and honored by the FinTech Breakthrough Awards in the Best Robo Advisory Platform category last spring, Stash was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in New York City.