Sqwire

Sqwire is a provider of financial education and customizable financial wellness benefits for employees. The company's platform offers financial education, delivering personalized programs and a self-paced curriculum, enabling users to make confident financial action. Its mission is to help low- to moderate-income families realize their financial promise by providing financial education. Sqwire was founded in 2019 and is headquartered in Norfolk, VA.

Sqwire offers a platform for employers to provide personalized financial education content to its staff. The platform provides over 70 self-paced lessons covering critical financial issues such as debt management, investing, retirement planning, and taxes, making financial education accessible and manageable for its users.

Helping employers provide personalized, high-touch, and holistic financial wellness tools to their entire workforce.

Financial Wellness Tools

Sqwire offers a platform for employers to provide personalized financial education content to its staff. The platform provides over 70 self-paced lessons covering critical financial issues such as debt management, investing, retirement planning, and taxes, making financial education accessible and manageable for its users.In December 2020, Sqwire announced the acquisition of Wealthology, a company focused on financial literacy training, for an undisclosed amount. The merger is expected to help the company’s nationwide push.Key customers and partnershipsSome of the notable organizations that use Sqwire’s platform include the US Air Force, North Carolina Wesleyan University, Robert Morris University, Flow Automotive, Banister Automotive, and Calvary Leaders Network. Moreover, Sqwire also partnered with Resolve Insurance Group in November 2022 to offer comprehensive financial literacy training to the latter’s clients.

Based in the UK, Salary Finance partners with employers to provide a platform for staff to access a range of financial wellbeing products such as early access to earned wages, obtain lower cost borrowing-backed by the user’s salaries, resources for customized financial education, and tools for employees to build and automate savings. The US operations of Salary Finance merged with US financial wellness benefit platform <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/609722">Finfit </a>in April 2023, and a combined platform under the Finfit brand is planned to be offered to US customers.As of February 2024, the platform was used by 600 employers across the UK, available to more than 4.5 million employees. These include more than a fifth of the companies in the FTSE-100 index. Salary Finance partnered with the American financial technology company Chime in July 2021, to launch Save—a new product to incentivize US employees to set up a salary-linked savings account with Chime, and become entitled to a USD 50 bonus and a variable Annual Percentage Yield (APY) of 0.50%.In March 2021, Salary Finance secured a USD 150 million investment from Community Investment Management (CIM). The investment will be in the form of debt funding that will be disbursed to Salary Finance over a period of three years. The company will utilize this investment to fund low-cost loans for its users.

Salary Finance

PayActiv provides a holistic financial wellness solution, with its core offering being “Earned-Wage Access” where employees can get early access to their wages before payday. The company’s platform also includes additional features such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine-learning based tools for budgeting, tracking savings, managing spending and bills, and obtaining personalized one-on-one financial coaching from trained professionals. As of November 2023, PayActiv’s platform was used by employees at over 4,000 businesses from industries such as retail and food services across the US, with some customers in Canada, Australia, Philippines and Brazil. Its clients include Walmart, Wayfair, Ibex Global and several others. The company also has working partnerships with payment processors such as Finserv and Visa to enable real-time transfer of earned wages to bank accounts of employees. It also entered into partnership with U.S. Bank in February 2022, where users of prepaid U.S. Bank Focus Cards for payroll will be able to access their wages early. In August 2020, PayActiv raised USD 100 million in Series C funding, led by Eldridge with participation from existing shareholders Generation Partners and Ziegler LinkAge Fund. The company expects to use this funding to accelerate growth.

PayActiv

Based In the UK, Wagestream provides a financial wellness platform that includes tools to track earnings and expenses, access earned wages prior to payday, and resources to obtain personalized financial education. Wagestream’s tools are offered to employees through a mobile app, with an analytics platform for employers to monitor participation and financial resilience of staff.&nbsp;Employees can access their earned wages using the app by paying a flat fee of GBP 1.75 (USD 2.40) per withdrawal. The company’s platform has integrations with several payroll and timekeeping systems, enabling organizations to deploy Wagestream into their payroll process.As of February 2024, Wagestream had a global user base of more than 3 million, which included more than 1,000 corporate customers in industries such as the retail, hospitality, and healthcare sectors. The company has offices in the US, UK, Spain, and Australia and some notable employers include Burger King, Pizza Hut, Crate &amp; Barrel, Bupa, University of Chicago, Popeyes, and National Health Service UK.Wagestream acquired 1) Australian earned-wage access startup Earnd in March 2021 to enter into the Australian market. 2) a credit card startup Keebos, in October 2023, to integrate Keebos credit score building platform ( that uses open banking data) with Wagestream’s core offerings. The company also partnered with French Insuretch provider Wakam in August 2023, to introduce income protection coverage to its users.&nbsp;&nbsp; In April 2022, the company <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9788?industryIds=43">raised USD 175 million</a> in a Series C funding round. The investment consisted of USD 60 million in equity led by Smash Capital and USD 115 million in debt financing from Silicon Valley Bank. The funds were expected to be utilized to develop new product features such as insurance, lending, and budgeting for its financial wellbeing app and to expand its presence in new markets such as the US by extending support to 30 million frontline workers.

Wagestream

Based in the UK, Cleo offers an application that includes tools for budgeting, and provides personalized spending and savings advice by connecting to a user's bank account and applying machine learning algorithms to analyze spending habits and transaction history. The app also provides access to an interactive chatbot which users can query to obtain on-demand suggestions (which has been supported by an in-house large language mode since 2023). Cleo offers a base version of its app for free, with paid tiers at USD 5.99/per month and 14.99, respectively. The latter includes additional features such as a secured card to build credit score, direct debits, and salary advances. Despite its UK origins, the company ceased operations in the UK in 2022 and focused exclusively on the US market since then. Funding and financialsCleo’s target market is the Gen-Z segment of the population and as of October 2023, the company had 7 million users, (up from 4 million in December 2020) and had USD 72.3 million annual recurring revenue (which was up 2.4x YoY).&nbsp;In June 2022, Cleo <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/11188">raised USD 80 million</a> in a funding round led by Brussels-listed tech investor Sofina at a USD 500 million valuation, bringing the total funding raised to nearly USD 137 million. The company expected to utilize the funds to expand its services and employee headcount of 140 to 220 by 2022.

Cleo

FinFit offers a financial wellness benefit platform for employers that uses predictive AI, and includes tools for employees to budget, track spending, set savings goals and obtain personalized financial assessments. The platform also provides access to certified financial counselors to obtain one-on-one financial advice. In addition to financial coaching, the company also offers services such as tools to manage student loan debt, get early access to earned wages, and obtain low-cost short-term loans backed by the employee’s salary. In April 2023, FinFit merged with the US operations of UK-based financial wellness platform <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/342361">Salary Finance</a>. The two companies aim to launch a combined platform in the US under the Finfit brand.As of March 2024, FinFit was reported to be serving more than 500,000 employees (up from 150,000 in 2020).FinFit’s last funding round was in July 2019, where it raised USD 7 million in Series B funding led by Galaxy Investment Partners. The company expected to channel the funding towards accelerating growth.

FinFit

Operates a B2B SaaS model to support employers with offering various fringe benefits to employees

Offers interactive platforms or apps for employers to provide personalized financial advice to its employees. These also include tools for budgeting, tracking earnings, and managing expenses.

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