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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Beijing-based ByteDance, the company behind TikTok, launched a mobile payments service for Douyin, which is China’s version of TikTok.
The new mobile payments service, Douyin Pay, will compete with the likes of Tencent’s WeChat Pay and Alibaba’s Alipay. “The set-up of Douyin Pay is to supplement the existing major payment options, and to ultimately enhance user experience on Douyin,” a Douyin representative told Reuters.
Douyin Pay will also help Douyin expand into the ecommerce scene. That’s because while users are watching short video clips of influencers promoting products on the Douyin app, they can pay using Douyin Pay instead of with competing payment services.
Helping to power the new payment service is Wuhan Hezhong Yibao Technology Co., which ByteDance purchased for an undisclosed amount in September of last year. Hezhong Yibao received a third-party payment license from China’s central bank in 2014.
Last fall, ByteDance achieved a valuation of $100 billion, making it the most valuable privately-held startup. In 2019, the company’s e-commerce and TikTok brands accounted for 17% of its total revenue. This figure is expected to expand this year as ByteDance taps into the potential of short-form video apps.
Another player vying for space in the Chinese payments arena is PayPal, which recently took full ownership of China-based GoPay. The move marks PayPal as the first foreign operator with 100% control of a Chinese payment platform. PayPal’s aim with the purchase is to provide a cross-border payments solution for Chinese consumers and merchants.
With bitcoin and cryptocurrencies enjoying renewed interest, it’s worth noting that many fintech fans encountered their first bitcoin-related businesses through Finovate conferences.
Here’s a look at some of the companies that have brought their bitcoin and crypto-powered innovations to the Finovate stage.
OpenCoin – FinovateSpring 2013 – The company now well-known as Ripple was introduced to Finovate audiences back in 2013. At FinovateSpring that year, Chris Larsen – CEO of a startup called OpenCoin – introduced its virtual currency and distributed open source payment network. Founded in 2012 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Ripple currently has more than 300 financial institutions who leverage its RippleNet blockchain network to power real-time payments.
KlickEx – FinovateAsia 2013 – New Zealand-based KlickEx unveiled its asset-backed and algorithmic cryptocurrency for institutional and retail users at FinovateAsia in 2013. The company, founded in 2009, recently announced a partnership with the National Reserve Bank of Tonga to launch a new national payment system.
Coinbase – FinovateSpring 2014 – Among the bigger names in bitcoin and cryptocurrency to have demonstrated their technology at Finovate conferences is San Francisco, California-based Coinbase. Debuting at Finovate with its Instant Exchange in 2014, Coinbase has grown into one of the biggest players in the cryptocurrency market with more than 35 million verified users and more than $320 billion in total volume traded on its platform.
AlphaPoint – FinovateEurope 2015 – With more than $350 million in monthly trading volume and 20 digital currency exchanges operating in 15 countries, AlphaPoint is a leading fintech exchange platform provider for digital currencies. The company demoed version two of its digital currency exchange platform at FinovateEurope in 2015.
CoinJar – FinovateEurope 2015 – Australia’s largest and longest-operating bitcoin company, CoinJar demonstrated its platform at FinovateEurope 2015. The Best of Show-winning firm was the first in its market to offer a bitcoin debit card that enabled cardholders to use the cryptocurrency for everyday purchases.
Bitbond – FinovateEurope 2015 – Berlin, Germany’s Bitbond offers a global P2P bitcoin lending platform that enables anyone with an Internet connection to both get loans as well as invest their savings for interest. The company demonstrated its AutoInvest functionality, which facilitates and automates fund allocation in a portfolio, at FinovateEurope 2015.
itBit – FinovateSpring 2015 – New York-based itBit demonstrated its bitcoin trading platform at FinovateSpring in 2015. The company’s technology enables both institutional and retail investors to buy and sell bitcoin. Rebranded as Paxos in the fall of 2016, the company has since highlighted its work in private blockchains and distributed ledger technology.
Blockstack.io – FinovateFall 2015 – Best of Show winning Blockstack.io offers a hosted and licensed enterprise blockchain platform that enables financial services companies and others to build applications on their own private blockchain. The San Francisco, California-based company, founded in 2015, was acquired by Digital Asset Holdings for an undisclosed sum before the end of the year.
ArcBit – FinovateFall 2015 – With a pledge to leverage bitcoin and blockchain technology to bring banking to the underbanked, ArcBit, which made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall in 2015, offers a mobile wallet specifically designed to give bitcoin owners full control over their cryptoholdings.
Coinalytics – FinDEVr San Francisco 2015 – Our developers conference, FinDEVr is one way that many bitcoin and crytocurrency innovators were able to bring their innovations to the public. Coinanalytics, which offers an end-to-end intelligence platform for the bitcoin industry, is an example of the kind of company developing solutions to make bitcoin a better opportunity for payments, financial services, and IoT.
BlockCypher – FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2015 – Another alum of our developer’s conference, BlockCypher offers companies a cloud-optimized, enterprise-grade blockchain platform that enables them to build reliable blockchain apps. Headquartered in Redwood City, California, the company was founded in 2014.
Gem – FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2015 – Founded in 2014 and based in Venice, California, Gem demonstrated its API which provides a comprehensive security solution for bitcoin apps – without taking control over funds. With a few lines of code, Gem enables developers to provide an interface to their bitcoin apps that gives users better funding options.
Ledger – FinovateEurope 2016 – Headquartered in Paris, France and founded in 2015, Ledger designs trusted hardware solutions for bitcoin and blockchain apps. The company’s solutions, including the Nano X and Nano S, provide cryptocurrency owners with a secure, portable way to take and manage their digital assets wherever they are.
Stratumn – FinDEVr New York 2016 – Enterprise blockchain technology company Stratumn provides firms with the infrastructure and tools they need to to build, deploy, and run blockchain. The company presented the high performance, proof-of-existence engine of its development platform at our developer’s conference in 2016. Jerome Lefebvre took over as CEO of the company from co-founder Richard Caetano in the fall of 2019.
Plutus.it – FinovateEurope 2018 – London-based Plutus demonstrated its Tap & Pay and Debit Card solutions that enable consumers to pay with bitcoin or Ethereum at any contactless point of sale. Founded in 2016, the company currently supports more than 26,000 Plutus accounts and credits its users for acquiring more than $100,000 in rewards via its Pluton Rewards program.
Amber Labs – Finovate MiddleEast 2019 – Best of Show winner Amber Labs is a bitcoin exchange, wallet, and micro-investment app in one. Headquartered in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, and founded in 2017, Amber Labs offers a mobile first, automated investment platform for retail customers looking to buy and sell bitcoin.
Online pension provider PensionBee is making it easier for the non-traditional workforce to save for their later years. That’s because the U.K.-based company is launching a new product designed for self-employed users.
The product will enable new users to set up a new pension in minutes. The new offering also provides a flexible contributions plan so that savers can adjust their pension contribution amounts as their income fluctuates, with no minimum contribution required.
The self-employed pension product is available to sole traders and directors of companies without an existing workplace or private pension. Users have nine investment options, including the PensionBee’s Fossil Fuel Free Plan which completely excludes fossil fuel producers and persistent violators of the UN Global Compact.
One of PensionBee’s differentiating factors is its fee structure. Instead of charging users a range of fees, the company has a more simplified fee structure that charges just one annual fee. This “all-in” fee ranges from 0.50% to 0.95%, depending on the plan. And, to encourage higher balances, PensionBee offers users 50% off their fee for any portion of their savings that exceeds £100,000.
Prompting the release of the self-employed product is the increase in self-employed workers combined with a decline in consumer savings. According to a report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the number of self-employed workers has grown over the past two decades while the proportion saving into a private pension has fallen from 48% in 1998 to 16% in 2018. Another study from Nest found that only 24% of self-employed workers are saving into a pension.
“Without the benefits of auto-enrollment, the self-employed are at a significant disadvantage and need access to simple and flexible products urgently if they are to avoid a shortfall in later life,” said PensionBee CEO Romi Savova. “In the absence of old workplace pensions to provide a head start, we know that the thought of saving from nothing can be daunting for many self-employed consumers, which is why we’ve made it as easy as possible for them to open a pension and put money aside whenever their business allows.”
“The self-employed currently make up 20% of the PensionBee customer base, so we know their needs well and are committed to helping many more self-employed consumers plan for a happy retirement and achieve better financial outcomes.”
Savova founded PensionBee in 2014 along with his co-founder, Jonathan Lister. The company has closed three rounds of funding; the amounts of each round are undisclosed.
Sweden-based Minna Technologies has secured more than $18 million (€15.5 million) in new funding to help bring its subscription management technology to more banks around the world. The Series B round was led by Element Ventures, and featured participation from MiddleGame Ventures, Nineyards Equity, and Visa. Minna Technologies now has raised more than $27 million (€23 million) in funding.
“Over the past four years, the subscription economy has exploded from Spotify and Netflix to even iPhones and cars,” Minna Technologies co-founder and CEO Joakim Sjöblom explained. “It’s becoming increasingly difficult for consumers to keep track of the payments and harder for banks to handle inquiries to shut them down. Minna’s tech improves the procedure for banks by simplifying the process, as well as providing an in-demand digital product that consumers are starting to expect from their financial institutions.”
Minna Technologies enables banks to offer their customers a better way to manage what analysts say are an average of 11 monthly subscriptions valued at €333 a month for European consumers. Rather than having to deal with each vendor or merchant separately, users of Minna’s solution can manage subscriptions directly via their banking app. The technology will also notify subscribers when free trial offers are nearing expiration to help users avoid accidental overpayment. Minna said that its technology has helped retail banking customers at partners Swedbank and ING save more than €40 million.
The subscription economy – driven by demand for products and services like online streaming and on-demand shopping – has grown by more than 3.5x since 2012, the company noted. A growing number of companies in the pre-digital economy are also taking advantage of the subscription model. As one example, automaker Volvo introduced a subscription service in the U.K., Care by Volvo, last fall. The new offering includes servicing, road tax, and maintenance as part of its “genuine, flexible alternative” to car ownership.
Element Ventures partner Michael McFadgen praised Minna as a company that was “revolutionizing financial services” for consumers and highlighted the ability of fintech innovation to provide banks with potential additional revenue streams, as well. “This is a clear example of the liberating services Open Banking promised us and we’re excited to be part of this journey with Minna,” McFadgen said.
Founded in 2016, Minna Technologies demonstrated its technology at FinovateEurope 2019 in Berlin, Germany. Last summer, the company announced a partnership with ING Belgium, enabling the bank’s 1.8 million customers to manage their subscription commitments without leaving the bank portal.
Pre-accounting platform Expensify commemorated Martin Luther King Jr. Day with a creative way to fight injustice. The company will donate 25 cents for every dollar it pays its white male employees to its volunteer-led campaigns. The company estimates that this initiative – the product of “numerous internal conversations” among Expensify employees – will raise $3 million in 2021.
Dude fee? Bro tax? As Expensify CEO and founder David Barrett explained, the calculation was made based on national gender pay gap data. “As part of our broader commitment to creating a world free of injustice, we’re using external data sources to determine our direct donations so it meaningfully reflects the types of fundamental and generational issues we’re trying to help solve.”
In the company’s announcement, Expensify Director Puneet Lath – a nine-year veteran of the firm- elaborated on the thinking behind the decision. Pointing out that members of some minority groups can earn as low as 75 cents on the dollar compared to white men doing the same work, Lath said this gap has contributed to systemic inequality and “unequal treatment in the workforce.” To this end, he said this specific funding approach “furthers our commitment to unwind systemic injustice throughout society.”
The engine of Expensify’s program is Expensify.org, which was launched last year to help facilitate charitable giving and volunteering. The onset of the COVID-19 crisis caused the organization to focus its efforts on hunger relief efforts, resulting in assistance to 5,000 low-income families by the end of 2020.
A Finovate alum for more than a decade, Expensify also participated in our developer’s conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley. Founded in 2008 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, the receipt tracking and expense management app has more than 10 million users around the world.
One of the greatest “How It Started” vs “How It Going” stories in international fintech these days continues to be the rise of Grab Financial, the spin-off from ride-hailing and food delivery company Grab. The Singapore-based company announced this week that it has secured more than $300 million in a round led by Hanwha Asset Management of South Korea. The investment, which also featured participation from K3 Ventures, GGV Capital, Arbor Ventures, and Flourish Ventures, gives the company an estimated valuation of $3 billion.
“We are at an inflection point in Southeast Asia,” Grab Financial Group senior managing director Reuben Lai said, “as the pandemic has accelerated the need for digital financial services that help us grow and protect our incomes.” The company reported that the new capital will help support the hiring of additional talent, as well as fuel expansion and the introduction of new products.
Among the recent accomplishments of Grab’s fintech division are a 40% gain in 2020 revenues, a 4x increase in users of its insurance distribution offering, and the launch of its first wealth management solution. Grab – as part of its consortium with Singtel – was also among the fortunate few to earn approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore to launch a digital bank.
This week’s Finovate Global Reports features a fresh look at fintech in Latin America courtesy of EBANX annual Beyond Borders 2020/2021 study. The report looks at the impact of COVID-19 on cross-border e-commerce and payments trends in Latin America.
Among the key insights include the centrality of mobile in driving digital consumption of services as 4G becomes more widespread throughout the region. The report also suggests that Latin America has the potential to rival southeast Asia in terms of the growth of its e-commerce sector.
For our international Finovate Global Alumni Profile this week, here’s a look at ModularBank, a digital banking solution provider based in Estonia that raised €4 million in new funding this week. The company, which demoed its technology at FinovateEurope 2019 in London, offers a modern, API-based, banking-as-a-service solution to help businesses leverage new business models and gain competitive advantage.
“Increasingly, people are demanding more flexible and convenient services that fit around the way they work and live and in response, there is a wave of digitalization and embedded finance on the horizon, beginning to build,” explained Modularbank CEO Vilve Vene upon announcement of the company’s recent funding.
“To harness this momentum there is a real need for lean, yet sophisticated core banking technology … Modularbank was set up to enable banks and other customer-facing businesses to devise and roll out personalized banking services quickly and easily.”
A collaboration between the State Bank of Pakistan and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will bring a state-run digital payments system, named Raast, to Pakistan.
Jamaica-based digital microfinance company Sprint Financial Services picks up an investment from black-led Blue Mahoe Capital Partners, based in Florida.
Mynt, the fintech division of telecom Globe and e-wallet GCash, raises $175 million in new funding to support growth in mobile payments in the Philippines.
With a focus on South Eastern and Central and Eastern European startups, LAUNCHub Ventures announces first closing of its new fund, bringing in €44 million en route to its €70 million goal.
Brokerage infrastructure API provider DriveWealthannounced this week it acquired Cuttone & Company, a New York-based institutional broker dealer. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
DriveWealth has purchased Cuttone & Company specifically for its market and regulatory expertise and network of institutional trading partners. The New Jersey-based company will leverage this expertise to offer its own partners access to price discovery on its scalable, configurable, and redundant electronic trading infrastructure.
Ultimately, the acquisition will offer retail investors who trade fractional shares of U.S. equities via DriveWealth’s partners direct access to the point of sale for NYSE securities.
“These added resources, unprecedented transparency, and the ability to trade directly on the NYSE or across all U.S. equity destinations will open up greater opportunities for the retail investors we serve on our platform,” said DriveWealth Founder and CEO Bob Cortright. “Having notional trading technology connected to a flexible brokerage infrastructure allows investors to start small by investing in brands they know and care about. We’re proud to bring this new combination of Cuttone & Company’s institutional knowledge with our retail trading technology to become the most complete brokerage stack available to retail investors today.”
DriveWealth was founded in 2012 by Cortright and his co-founder Julie Coin. The company has raised a total of $100.8 million, including a $56.7 million DriveWealth closed last October.
Global card issuing platform Marqetaunveiled today that it has been tapped by Goldman Sachs to power checking accounts for its Marcus brand.
The new digital checking accounts will launch for Goldman’s Marcus clients later this year, though there is no word on the exact timing.
Goldman selected Marqeta for its open APIs and webhooks and its developer experience, which was designed to power future-proofed banking experiences. The two also have a prior relationship, as Goldman Sachs is one of Marqeta’s previous investors.
“We’re incredibly proud to work with Marcus by Goldman Sachs to help power this work, which we think is a true validation of the power of our technology,” said Marqeta Founder and CEO Jason Gardner. “Our modern card issuing platform helps digital innovators build the sorts of customer experiences that can be industry game changers, and we’re looking forward to working alongside Marcus to bring a powerful new digital banking experience to life.”
Marcus currently offers limited consumer banking tools, including savings, certificates of deposits, and loans. The bank also partnered with Apple in 2019 to serve as the banking partner behind the Apple credit card. Expanding into checking accounts will help Goldman Sachs diversify from its traditional investment banking offerings and move further into the everyday financial lives of consumers.
Goldman’s expansion into checking accounts comes as no surprise. The bank announced its intentions in February of last year. And the partnership with Marqeta is a logical one. The California-based company offers a tech-forward approach and counts fintechs such as Square and Klarna among its clients.
Should other banks– challenger banks and traditional banks alike– be worried? Jim Marous answers that question in his piece Marcus: A Digital Bank That Should Keep Rivals Up At Night. “In the future, the Marcus brand will only grow,” said Marous. “With the addition of wealth management and eventually checking accounts that are 100% supported by a mobile app, financial institutions of all sizes should take note of the potential for Goldman Sachs to be a major player in the marketplace. If banks and credit unions are not paying attention today (when there is time to react), there is a good chance Marcus will be the source of nightmares going forward.”
Upgrade, the neobank launched by LendingClub founder Renaud Laplanche is celebrating the one-year anniversary of its flagship Upgrade Card – and a $50 million fundraising – with a new mobile checking account. Upgrade’s Unique Reward Checking Accounts offer 2% cash back on everyday and recurring expenses and 1% cash back on all other debit charges. Qualifying accountholders are eligible for up to 20% discounts on Upgrade loans.
“We asked our customers what would cause them to switch their primary checking account,” Laplanche said. “The overwhelming answer was attractive rewards on debit card purchases. While credit cards often provide decent rewards, it has been nearly impossible for consumers to earn a broad 2% cash back on debit charges.”
Upgrade’s Rewards Checking account, as well as all of the neobank’s banking services, are backed by Cross River Bank, chartered in New Jersey. Cross River founder, CEO, and chairman called the new accounts “everything mainstream consumers expect from a modern checking account with no fees, generous rewards, and access to affordable credit.”
The new offering comes as Upgrade enjoys strong adoption of its Upgrade Card, which offers access to installment financing online and at millions of points of sale via the Visa network. The company reported an annual rate of $1 billion in new credit lines already made available to consumers who are applying for Upgrade Cards or loans at a rate of more than one million a month.
Meanwhile in the wake of Brexit, European challenger bank Revolut is back in the market for a banking license in its home country. Revolut opted to secure its first banking license from the European Central Bank rather than pursue banking in the U.K. when anxieties over the future of a post-Brexit United Kingdom were at their peak. But now, with Brexit moving closer toward resolution, Revolut has returned with a bid to bring its digital banking services to the U.K.
“We want to be the best in class for customer experience, value and capabilities, and offering full bank accounts allows us to do just that,” Revolut founder and CEO Nik Storonsky said. “In the future, we want to offer many more innovative products to our UK customers and we are excited to continue driving innovation and competition in the banking industry. Becoming a fully licensed bank in the U.K. is a central pillar of that ambition.”
Toronto, Ontario-based challenger bank Koho announced this week that it has hired former Wayfair Director of Engineering Jonathan Klein as its new Chief Technology Officer. Klein takes over the CTO spot from Kris Hansen, who left the position back in August.
Founded in 2014 as the country’s first neobank, Koho has more than 120,000 accounts and reports $500 million in annualized transactions. The neobank offers full-service individual and joint bank accounts, along with a prepaid Visa card issued by People Trust Company. Koho has raised a total of $57.7 million in funding, most recently securing a $18.8 million Series B in the fall of 2019. Last year, Koho picked up an award for Best Prepaid Credit Card in Canada for 2021 from CreditCardGenius.
And for more from the neobank beat, check out our eulogy for Simple, the in-house challenger bank which was shuttered by BBVA after six years in operation.
How are businesses in financial services applying technologies like machine learning and AI? What obstacles and challenges remain for companies looking to deploy these technologies and how can these roadblocks be overcome? What does it mean for businesses to be “resilient” and why is “resilience” as important for businesses in today’s dynamic and uncertain times as “agility”?
We caught up with Jeff Fried, Director of Product Management for InterSystems, last week to address these and other critical questions for financial services companies in the COVID – and post-COVID – era. Fried was featured during our FinovateWest Digital conference last month, where he led a keynote address titled, “The 7 Steps to Using Machine Learning to Improve Your Business.”
For more insights from Jeff Fried into how businesses can make the most out of the current crisis, check out our feature Giving AI and Machine Learning the Business.
The news that retail giant Walmart is turning its attention to fintech is an impressive reminder of how the industry has grown. What began as a land of incumbents defending itself from a siege of digitally-savvy disruptors has become more of an Age of Exploration, in which companies large and small compete for slices of an increasingly valuable and growing market for digital financial services.
What is Walmart doing?
Walmart announced on Monday that it is building a fintech startup that will “develop unique and affordable financial products for Walmart employees and customers.”
“For years, millions of customers have put their trust in Walmart to not only save them money when they shop with us but help them manage their financial needs. And they’ve made it clear they want more from us in the financial services arena,” Walmart U.S. president and CEO John Furner said. “We’re thrilled to work with Ribbit Capital in a new venture to help us deliver innovative and needed options to our customers and associates – with speed and at scale.”
The new entity will be majority-owned by Walmart, and the company has previewed a handful of future board members: Furner and Walmart CFO Brett Biggs.
Why are they doing it?
Walmart already offers financial services to its customers in the form of products like its prepaid debit solution, the Walmart MoneyCard, as well as its Walmart Credit Card, check cashing, and money transfer services. The big box retailer also offers consumer financing alternatives like buy now pay later, courtesy of its partnership with Affirm (which went public this week).
Creating a fintech arm or subsidiary would enable the retail giant potentially to offer a wide variety of additional services ranging from investment and wealth management, to insurance, lending, and banking.
Who is helping them?
Collaborating with Walmart in this new venture is Ribbit Capital, the venture capital firm behind Robinhood, Affirm, and Credit Karma. Walmart, in its statement, described the new company as a “strategic partnership” with the Palo Alto, California-based venture capital firm. Founded in 2012 by Meyer Malka, Ribbit Capital focuses on investments in early-stage companies and has an extensive portfolio of investments in fintechs, in particular. These ranks include – in addition to the companies noted above – such innovative fintechs as Revolut, Gusto, Coinbase, and Wealthfront (all Finovate alums, by the way).
“Walmart has a relationship with millions of customers and associates built on trust, security and integrity,” Malka said. “When we combine our deep knowledge of technology-driven financial businesses and our ability to move with speed with Walmart’s mission and reach, we can create and deliver financial offerings that are second to none.”
What’s the upside?
Given the current climate, the tougher challenge may lie in making the argument against Walmart’s flirtation with fintech. Given Walmart’s size and popularity – the company serves more than 265 million customers in 11,400 stores around the world every week – the company is in as good a position as any other retailer – short of Amazon perhaps – to make an impact on fintech wherever it decides to land.
That said, consumer financing and payments both appear on the surface to be the easiest ways for a Walmart fintech arm to make the biggest difference fastest. With regard to payments, as Barron’s observed, Walmart could leverage its ownership of India-based Flipkart. In the review, Barron’s quoted Bank of America analyst Robert Ohmes highlighted the monetization opportunities in financial services as a potential way for Walmart to secure “long-term profitability.”
What are the risks?
On the other hand, Walmart will need to be wary of “diversifying away its edge.” John Zolidis, president of Quo Vadis Capital warns of a potential loss of focus should Walmart aggressively pursue business opportunities away from its “core competency.” Zolidis noted further that the company’s primary customers may not be the earliest adopters of digital financial services, pointing out that nearly 25% of Walmart’s customers do not have a bank account, and 50% lack access to credit.
Then again, these may be exactly the sort of problems for which Walmart’s new fintech venture is a kind of solution.
Shortly after expanding its offerings to include consumer banking tools, fintech innovator Blendannounced it has landed $300 million in new funding.
The series G financing round was led by Coatue and Tiger Global, and brings Blend’s total funding to $665 million. With the investment, Blend is also seeing its valuation nearly double to $3.3 billion, up from $1.7 billion just five months earlier.
In a blog post, company CEO Nima Ghamsari said that Blend will use the funds to fuel “aggressive plans” for this year. “We want to build the banking software infrastructure for the future,” said the CEO, “with an end-to-end digital experience for any consumer banking product and a complete homebuying and financing journey from start to close.”
Blend offers banks no-code, drag-and-drop workflows to help them customize the end user experience and launch new products quickly in response to consumer demand.
The company launched in 2012 with a focus on helping banks revamp the mortgage application process for consumers. Last September, Blend introduced a consumer banking suite, a set of tools to help banks focus on more than just the lending process. The suite includes modules to help banks launch their own deposit accounts, credit cards, personal loans, vehicle loans, and home equity line of credit offerings.
Last year, Blend facilitated $1.4 trillion in loans, more than double what it did in 2019. The company counts 285+ lender partners, which together are responsible for around 30% of all mortgage volume in the U.S. Partners include BMO Harris Bank, Navy Federal Credit Union, and Wells Fargo, which sees more than 75% of its mortgage applications submitted via its Blend-powered application tool.
In addition to growing its loan volume and client portfolio, Blend also grew its team. The company added more than 200 employees last year remotely via Zoom, a move that increased its team by more than 60%.
“Today’s news is just another step in Blend’s journey; we’re in it for the long haul, and we look forward to continuing to build the best lending and banking experiences for all,” said Ghamsari.
