EXCLUSIVE – Greenlight Financial Technology, a fintech startup for kids, has raised $16 million in a Series A funding round today, Bank Innovation has learned.
Greenlight Technology is a combination of P2P and PFM features on a mobile app, and is unusual in that it focuses on children. It is no wonder that banks like Suntrust Bank, Ally Financial, and NBKC Bank have taken interest in the fintech by participating in this latest round of funding. Working with Greenlight, no doubt, opens the gate for these banks to cater to a plethora of potential future customers — you know, when the kids grow up.
But for now, the Atlanta, Ga.-based Greenlight is making impressive strides for a company that’s only a year old, with over 75K customers, based on a previous Bank Innovation report.
Today’s round of funding is an indication of that progress. The $16 million round was led by led TTV Capital. Aside from those mentioned above, other investors included Canapi, and the Amazon Alexa Fund along with existing investors New Enterprise Associates Inc. (NEA) and Relay Ventures.
The company plans to use the funds to hire new talent and expand its product offerings, according to an email statement by Tim Sheehan, CEO and Co-Founder of Greenlight.
“We’re excited about our momentum at Greenlight,” Sheehan said in an email to Bank Innovation. “With this round of funding, we’re going to continue expanding our customer base through marketing and strategic partnerships, while focusing on product development to continue to delight our customers. With our projected growth over the next 24 months, this round of investment will help our team expand to support our growing customer base.”
Sheehan, who formerly co-led Yahoo Finance, started the company as a mobile app that enables parents/guardians to transfer money to their children via mobile app. Within months, Greenlight launched its own smart debit card powered by Mastercard, which parents can allocate to a child. The card has a spending limit of $1,000 and the parent can refill the amount instantly through the app as required. A family is allowed up to five cards per family. For the kids, aside from giving them the ability to receive money, the app uses gamification and incentive tactics to educate them on financial concepts like savings, investing and even compound interest.
Greenlight is available on both Android and Apple. The service costs $4.99 per month per family, which includes cards for up to five children of any age. The first 30-days of the service is free.
Last May, the company raised $7.5 million in seed funding led by Canadian Relay Ventures and included Social Capital, NEA, and TTV as investors.
To learn more about digital payments and PFM, join us on March 5-6, 2018 at the Parc 55 in San Francisco for Bank Innovation 2018. Click here to register.