SeaChange Fund, founded in 2015 as Seattle Angel Fund, has invested more than $5 million in 15 early-stage Pacific Northwest startups, across seven industries. These investments help support nearly 200 jobs in the region. ​

SeaChange

IA Ventures is a venture capital firm that specializes in seed-stage investments in the fintech sector.  The firm seeks to invest in companies operating in information technology, e-commerce, software, financial services, healthcare, media, big data, and business services sectors.

IA Ventures

The R-Group

Alumni Ventures Group provides high-quality, diversified venture portfolios to individual investors who previously haven't had access to VC. It helps accredited alums from top entrepreneurial schools invest together in the ventures of fellow alums. The firm backs companies with an alumni connection and an institutional lead investor with expertise in the space. AVG also offers focused funds that allow any accredited investor access to a venture portfolio, diversified by type, sector, stage, and geography. Beth Obermiller, Michael Madden, and Mike Collins co-founded the firm in Manchester, New Hampshire in 2013.

Alumni Ventures

PSL Ventures is a venture fund that focuses on technology-driven companies. The firm is closely affiliated with Pioneer Square Labs' startup studio, investing in both studio and non-studio companies.

PSL Ventures

Truist Ventures is the corporate venture capital division of Truist Financial Corporation (NYSE: TFC). Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, Truist Ventures invests in financial technology companies to help Truist deliver innovative financial products and services to clients. The firm was established in 2018 by integrating investments in technology companies from the heritage SunTrust brand with BB&T Ventures.

Truist Ventures

Stearns Financial Group is an investment advisor that offers personalized financial planning and investment management to individuals, pension and profit sharing plans, trusts, estates, charitable organizations, and businesses.  Stearns Financial is one of only a handful of independent Registered Investment Advisors in North Carolina that has a full corporate commitment to the fiduciary oath of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA). The company was founded in 1991 and is based in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Stearns Financial Group

FTX Exchange is a cryptocurrency exchange company that develops a platform for professional trading firms. They strive to build a platform suitable for professional trading firms and intuitive enough for first-time users. FTX supports quarterly and perpetual futures for all cryptocurrencies, leveraged tokens, and OTC. FTX was incubated by Alameda Research, a top cryptocurrency liquidity provider. Because of this, FTX has had industry order books from day one.

SecureSave

SecureSave provides a purpose-built emergency savings solution. Emergency savings are the foundation of financial wellness. Help your employees get started. Make an immediate impact on your team for a fraction of the cost of other workplace savings programs.

SecureSave provides an employer-sponsored emergency savings account (ESA) solution. By partnering with employers, SecureSave facilitates the addition of ESAs to benefits packages, allowing employees to track and grow their savings progress and access funds in emergencies.

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

Financial Wellness Tools

Voya Financial teams up with SecureSave to offer new emergency savings program to its Workplace clients

SecureSave provides an employer-sponsored emergency savings account (ESA) solution. By partnering with employers, SecureSave facilitates the addition of ESAs to benefits packages, allowing employees to track and grow their savings progress and access funds in emergencies.The company claims that over half of invited employees have participated in these benefits offered by their employer and have been able to save USD 400 in four months, with this figure going up to USD 1,000 in a year. The company operates through subscription-model, charging USD 1–3 per participating employee per month.Key customers and partnershipsSecureSave serves companies in industries such as healthcare, manufacturing, and professional services with notable customers including 3R Technology, Filtec, and DemandZen.In June 2024, the company partnered with Voya Financial, a provider of retirement planning, investment, and insurance services, to offer ESA to the latter’s clients.

Based in the UK, Salary Finance offers a comprehensive suite of financial well-being benefits for employees. The company partners with employers to offer a platform that provides employees with access to a range of financial well-being products, including salary-backed loans, earned wage advances, savings accounts, and customized educational resources to help them build and automate savings as well as improve their overall financial well-being.In April 2024, the US operations of Salary Finance merged with the financial wellness benefit platform <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/609722">Finfit</a>. The combined entity now operates under the FinFit brand in the US.Key customers and partnershipsAs 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. Its notable customers include the NHS, Dunelm, Virgin Active, and Simply Health.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%.

Salary Finance

Payactiv offers a financial wellness solution, centered around "Earned-Wage Access," allowing employees to access their wages before payday. Employees can instantly access funds for hours worked, with options to transfer to their bank, load onto a Payactiv card, or withdraw cash at Walmart. Its app works as a digital wallet and includes additional features such as 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.The Payactiv app also features a free communication tool—Payactiv Connect—that enables employers and employees to connect for HR communications, company news, alerts, and shift scheduling.Key customers and partnershipsAs 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, the Philippines, and Brazil. Its clients include Walmart, Wayfair, Ibex Global and several others. It also entered into a partnership with US Bank in February 2022, where users of prepaid US Bank Focus Cards for payroll will be able to access their wages early.The company also has working partnerships with payment processors such as <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/23004">Fiserv</a> and <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/13061">Visa</a> to enable real-time transfer of earned wages to bank accounts of employees.

PayActiv

Based In the UK, Wagestream provides a financial wellness platform, offering a range of services including earned wage access, financial education, tools for savings, and pay and spend tracking. 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.Employees can access their earned wages using the app by paying a flat fee of GBP 1.95 (USD 2.50) per withdrawal. The company’s platform has integrations with several payroll and timekeeping systems, enabling organizations to deploy Wagestream into their payroll process.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.Key customers and partnershipsAs 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.The company also partnered with French Insuretch provider Wakam in August 2023, to introduce income protection coverage to its users.

Wagestream

Cleo offers 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 model since 2023).&nbsp;The platform also offers additional features such as a secured card to build credit score, direct debits, and salary advances.Cleo operates a subscription-based pricing on its budgeting and savings tools, with fee-based pricing on its cash advance offerings targeted at gig workers and workers with poor credit. The platform charges monthly subscription fees in the range of USD 1.99 - 5.99 on Cleo Plus offering and charges USD 10.99-14.99 on Cleo build offering.Cleo’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)

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, Fitfit 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.FinFit operates a subscription-based pricing model, and charges employers in the range of USD 0.30–1.00 per employee per month based on the size of the organizations and number of employees. The platform also generates revenue through interest income by charging users interest in the range of 7.9%–24.9% APR on its loans. It charges fixed interest on its lines of credit.As of March 2024, FinFit was reported to be serving more than 500,000 employees (up from 150,000 in 2020).Key customers and partnershipsIn September 2024, FinFit <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/33696">partnered with</a> <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/945256">Sunny Day Fund</a>, a financial support platform, to offer emergency savings accounts for employees through its SafetyNet platform. In August 2024, FinFit <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/32581">partnered with</a> <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/493140">isolved</a>, a human capital management platform, to expand product reach.

FinFit

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.

Provides a platform for employers to offer its employees an alternative to payday loans. Can either be early access to wages already earned or emergency access to interest-free funds which are settled through the paycheck.

Provides a platform for employers to provide resources such as tools and advice to manage employee debt (with an increased focus on student loan debt).

Consumers can use these applications to obtain personalized financial advice, automate savings, create budgets, and track and manage their spending.

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

SecureSave

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