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Today, we’re thrilled to share that Pinwheel has raised $20M in Series A funding from Coatue with participation from Primary Ventures, Semper Virens and support from existing investors, First Round Capital and Upfront Ventures.
Angel investors include leaders of some of the most well-known and innovative financial services companies in the world: Gokul Rajaram (Coinbase, Square), Adam Nash (Acorns, Wealthfront), Jackie Reses (Square), and Raj Date (first Deputy Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau), alongside other prominent business leaders like Tony Xu (DoorDash), Shishir Mehrotra (Coda), Amit Agarwal (Datadog), Shiva Rajaraman (Facebook) and many more.
“We have been fortunate enough to partner with a number of the leading fintech infrastructure players and think Pinwheel is the next transformative platform,“ said Michael Gilroy, General Partner, Coatue. “We believe the company has quickly emerged as the leading platform in the market powering the next generation of financial products for some of the largest consumer facing fintechs.”
Why payroll connectivity matters
As a booming ecosystem of neobanks and fintech innovators have emerged, they have been met with outdated systems that stifle innovation, speed, and efficiency. These companies require payroll connectivity to access the direct deposit and employment data they need to conduct business and grow, yet have had no simple and direct way to do so. Prior alternatives are manual, time consuming and leave room for errors.
Pinwheel offers an easy way to connect to the large and fragmented ecosystem of payroll providers through a single point of connectivity. Banking customers can use us to enable direct deposit switching, an automated way to move paychecks from an existing bank account to a new bank account. Lending customers can use us to retrieve account data around income and employment so that verification is fast, efficient, and has a lower risk of fraud.
Now serving 3 of the top 5 neobanks, including Square’s Cash App
Since our initial launch, we’ve increased coverage to over 100 million Americans - more than 70% of paid Americans - and now integrate with every major payroll provider, government portal, and gig economy platform.
As fintech leaders adopt Pinwheel at an exciting pace, our revenue has grown by 11x over the past quarter. We’re proud to be the trusted payroll API for three of the top five largest neobanks, including Square’s Cash App. Over the next quarter, we will process over half of all direct deposit switches for the neobank market, cementing our position as the market leader.
Building a world-class team
The exciting progress we’ve made was only possible because of all the hard work of our incredible team. What started as just three people hopping between different co-working spaces has now grown to over 40 people strong across the US and abroad. To keep up with strong demand, we’ve more than doubled the team in the past 6 months and are only accelerating from here.
We know that building the best companies starts by having the best people and we’re hiring across all functions, from engineering to people ops and beyond. If you’re interested in learning more, check out our open roles!
Where we’re headed: A fairer financial system
Our focus is to ensure that we continue to deliver as much value and delight as we can to both existing customers as well as to new ones. That means continuing to invest in growing our best-in-class coverage of payroll platforms, improving our market-leading conversion rates, and scaling our incredible team. This new funding will allow us to do exactly that.
When we introduced Pinwheel in September of last year, we shared our vision for a technology that could better serve the millions of Americans left behind by our financial system due to antiquated processes and technologies. Our news today is a meaningful first step, and we’re excited to lay the foundation for future applications of our product that become possible by unlocking payroll information.
We believe in a future where FICO and Equifax aren’t the only tools businesses use to make decisions for customers that can impact futures and livelihoods. Pinwheel can help paint a much more comprehensive picture of an individual's finances, which leads to fairer (and smarter) decisions. Income has long been the key missing link in this equation and we’re here to change that.
We’re also inspired by all the new products and use cases that we see and hear from customers everyday. We’re grateful to be at the forefront of innovation in a space that is long overdue for widespread transformation and are excited to help play a part in enabling the financial products of the future.
While today’s announcement is a signal that we’re on the right track, there’s still so much for us to accomplish. Stay tuned on our progress and learn more by following us on LinkedIn.
