New $4.8m funding for SME bank Novo
Novo has raised $4.8 million in venture seed financing to make banking accessible for small businesses by launching no-fee FDIC-insured digital banking.
No hidden fees or paperwork
Crosslink Capital, Red Sea Ventures, Hack VC, RRE, Rainfall and Stanford Law School Venture Fund participated in this round of funding.
The bank for SMEs launched in September 2018 and aims to allow small business owners to open business checking accounts in under ten minutes.
The firm says it has no hidden fees or paperwork and offers free business checking and debit card access, all through the mobile app.
“Today everything from your toaster to your thermostat can be integrated into your business’s workflow and we think your bank should be able to do the same,” explains Tyler McIntyre, co-founder and CTO.
“Traditional banks don’t understand the needs of founders and are held back by legacy technology. We built Novo from the ground up allowing us to deploy new features every week and integrate into the tools you already use for your business.”
Michael Rangel, co-founder and CEO, says: “Our focus will be on onboarding the many account requests on our waitlist, as well as creating strategic partnerships with other value-added products and services to enhance the Novo ecosystem and customer experience in addition to expanding our team.”
Novo relies on its partner, Middlesex Federal Savings, a regulated community bank, while it builds its own proprietary technology.
Novo aims to offer data analytics through multiple partners and integrations with Slack, Stripe and Zapier, as well as leading accounting software to give users real-time insights and notifications on the financial health of their small business.
For a comprehensive list of challenger banks in the US, check out this link.
