Mobile banking platform Empower has raised $4.5m in its latest funding round which will support the development of its new reward service.
Initialized Capital led the investment, with participation also coming from existing backer Sequoia Capital.
San Francisco-based Empower is a digital banking platform which offers consumers rewards and an AI-powered personal finance assistant. The robo-advisor will aggregate all of a user’s accounts, track spending, and find how the consumer can make savings.
Capital from the round will be used to accelerate development of its new product, Empower banking, which is a reward scheme for the mobile bank users. This solution will earn members 1 per cent cashback on purchases paid through the Empower debt card, and 1.85 percentage yields on savings accounts.
The app will also have no maintenance, foreign transaction fees or account minimums.
Users of Empower can access checking and saving accounts at more than 25,000 ATMs or at any out-of-network ATM and get reimbursed.
Initialized Capital co-founder Alexis Ohanian said, “Consumers have been trained to have very low expectations when it comes to their banking services.
“Empower has created a banking service that is rewarding in ways that are both quantifiable, through high interest rates and cash back, and unquantifiable, through intelligent assistance that helps members make better financial decisions. We are excited to partner with Warren and his team on this journey to reinvent consumer banking.”
Initialized Capital has made a handful of investments to the FinTech sector. Last year, the firm supported the $8m Series A round of True Link Financial and led the £1.1m round of health insurance company Better.
Earlier in the month, fellow mobile banking solution Monese secured $60m in its Series B round to aid its international expansion efforts. The UK-based company is a mobile-only currency account which enables consumers to open European IBAN accounts in 20 countries.
Copyright © 2018 FinTech Global
