Atlanta-based Greenlight, which helps children learn to manage money with its app and debit card products, secured $260m in a Series D funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, nearly doubling its valuation in six months.
TTV Capital, Canapi Ventures, Wells Fargo Strategic Capital, BOND, Fin VC, Goodwater Capital, Wellington Management, Owl Ventures and LionTree Partners too joined the round.
The new cash infusion comes months after it landed a $215m Series C funding which propelled it into unicorn status. In total, the firm has raised over $550m with a current valuation of $2.3bn.
The new funding will be used to accelerate product development to add more financial services to Greenlight’s platform and to invest in strategic distribution partnerships. There are also plans to add 300 new employees with a focus on engineering over the next two years.
Greenlight’s financial services include an all-in-one money management platform, debit card with an app to help kids improve their financial knowledge about earning, saving, spending, giving and investing while giving parents controls on spending. Parents have the ability to deposit money in accounts and pay for allowance, manage chores and set flexible controls on how much kids can spend.
Since it launched its debit cards for kids in 2017, the company boasts of serving three million parents and kids helping them collectively save more than $120m. The firm has more than tripled YoY revenue and more than doubled the number of parents and kids on its platform and doubled the size of its team within the past year, it claimed.
Recently, the firm introduced an educational investing platform dubbed Greenlight Max where kids can research stocks, learn from a library of in-app educational content and make real investments with parental approval. Since the launch in January 2021, kids using the app made thousands of investments in companies like Apple, Tesla, Microsoft and Amazon.
Commenting on the firm’s growth, Andreessen Horowitz general partner David George, who also joined Greenlight’s board of directors said, “Greenlight has quickly emerged as the leader of the family finance category.
“Greenlight was built to help parents raise financially smart kids and with its breakthrough combination of easy-to-use money management tools and educational resources, the company is well-positioned to become one of the most loved and trusted brands for families around the world.”
Highlighting the importance of teaching children about finances, Greenlight CEO Tim Sheehan added, “Our vision at Greenlight is to create a world where every child grows up to be financially healthy and happy. Today’s financing will enable us to bring even more value to families as we continue to introduce new innovative products that shine a light on the world of money.”
It’s easy to see why a slew of startups have launched a similar family-friendly FinTech feature. This week, Step and Current who also scored big rounds both cater to children and teens. Till Financial which secured a seed round last week too aims to disrupt banking for teens.
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