Novo, a digital banking platform for small businesses, has pulled in $4.8m in a venture seed financing round.
Capital for the round was supplied by Crosslink Capital, Red Sea Ventures, Hack VC, RRE, Rainfall, and the Stanford Law School Venture Fund.
The company launched its banking platform in September 2018 with a focus on helping startup founders and small business owners open a checking account with no minimum balance requirements. It takes around 10 minutes to open an account and there are no hidden fees and no paperwork, the company claims.
Businesses also receive access to business checking and debit cards, which can be managed through the mobile app.
Novo is hoping to become the “financial watchtower for small business” by offering data analytics across various partners and integrations, to give a real-time insight into the financial health of a user’s small business. Integration partners include Slack, Stripe, Zapier, and Xero.
Following the round of funding, the company will look to build additional strategic partnerships with value-added products and services to enhance its ecosystem and customer experience.
Novo co-founder and CTO Tyler McIntyre said, “Today everything from your toaster to your thermostat can be integrated into your business’ workflow, and we think your bank should be able to do the same.
“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. That’s the way banking should be.”
Last year, Crosslink Capital held the $275m final close for its eighth fund, beating its initial target of $250m. The venture firm looks to invest in companies across the FinTech, big data and analytics, digital health, cloud infrastructure and alternative energy industries.
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