Amicus Capital is a seed stage information technology investment fund. They invest in entrepreneurs who are developing innovative information technology solutions to problems that affect large numbers of businesses or consumers. They like to invest early, typically in the first funding round, together with angel investors, friends and family. Over the past decade, they’ve invested in more than 60 seed stage information technology companies, many of which were subsequently funded by leading Silicon Valley venture capital firms and went public or were acquired by the most recognizable names in the industry.

Amicus Capital

[Arba](http://www.arbagroup.com/home.html) is a seed investment group that focuses on the internet, tech, and other new media.

Arba Seed Investment Group

Resolute is focused on finding extraordinary entrepreneurs and helping them succeed over the course of their career. Because our approach is so entrepreneur-focused, we are comfortable investing at the earliest of stages, often before any other investors. We make investment decisions quickly.  Very soon after our first meeting, we will either pass or articulate a discrete roadmap to a decision. We will invest as little as $50k and as much as $750k in a company’s initial financing. We prefer being a lead investor and guiding our entrepreneurs to the key milestones for a successful venture round.   We dislike “headless” seed rounds that lack a lead investor. Post investment we immediately focus on ensuring these milestones are clearly defined, and work to help our entrepreneurs achieve them. Rinse and repeat.

Resolute Ventures

Hedgewood is the personal investment vehicle of long time internet entrepreneur Jesse Rasch. It invests using proprietary capital, allowing for longer investment horizons and a broad range of asset classes. Further, as a globally minded investor, Hedgewood actively pursues and engages in a wide variety of investment opportunities in Canada, the United States, and internationally.

Hedgewood

Afore Capital backs product-centric founders at the pre-seed stage exclusively. The investment team brings 16 years of founding product experience (Android and Twitter) and 7 years of institutional investing experience (Founder Collective and Foundation Capital). Their sweet spot is the ~$1M pre-seed round, where they can lead the round as an institutional investor alongside high value angels.

Afore Capital

K50 Ventures is a purpose-driven, early-stage venture capital firm.  We are the first institutional check and long-term partner to founders who believe technology has the potential to unlock access and affordability for the world’s working class across health, finance, and work.  Since 2016, we’ve invested in over 150 companies that have generated top-decile venture returns for our investors and material impact for millions of people and small businesses.

K50 Ventures

The Financial Solutions Lab was established in 2014 to cultivate, support, and scale innovative ideas that help improve financial health. We focus on solutions addressing acute and persistent financial health challenges faced by low- to moderate-income (LMI) individuals, Black and Latinx communities, and other underserved consumers. The Financial Health Network manages the Financial Solutions Lab in collaboration with founding partner JPMorgan Chase and with support from Prudential Financial.

Financial Solutions Lab

The Heron is known for its patience, standing still until the exact right moment to strike.   Heron Rock is a physical place, a rock outside our office where a Heron often chooses to rest, when not hunting.

Heron Rock Fund

ff Venture Capital (ffVC) is a technology venture capital firm investing in some of the strongest growth areas to date, including cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, machine learning, drones, enterprise cloud software, and crowdfunding. The firm identifies and invests in technology and technology-enabled companies at its inception across geographies and emerging industries.  With three partners and an acceleration team of 20+ investment and operations professionals, ffVC actively participates with founders to develop products, target markets, and accelerate growth. Since 2008, ffVC has invested in over 100 companies and has helped to create companies with an aggregate market value exceeding $6 billion.

ff Venture Capital

Rebalance Capital is a FinTech and WorkforceTech investor propelling upward mobility for everyday Americans.

Rebalance Capital

Restive Ventures is on a mission to help entrepreneurs build the world’s best fintech companies. We provide the foundation of early-stage capital, deep operational expertise, and systematic connections to help founders launch and grow more quickly. Restive reflects fintech founder’s inability to sit still – the entrepreneurs and visionaries that want to get something done, and often don’t rest until they do. Restive is committed to financially and operationally supporting founders that are driven, innovative, and ready to change the world.

Restive

HoneyBee

HoneyBee is a Certified Benefit Corporation® with the mission to address financial insecurity in the workplace. We provide a Rainy Day Coverage with no-cost emergency funds and bilingual on-demand financial counseling because your employees' financial health matters.

HoneyBee’s platform enables employers to offer employees access to emergency funds at zero cost backed by paychecks. HoneyBee also offers personalized financial coaching through sessions with certified professionals.

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

Financial Wellness Tools

HoneyBee’s platform enables employers to offer employees access to emergency funds at zero cost backed by paychecks. HoneyBee also offers personalized financial coaching through sessions with certified professionals.HoneyBee has reported to provide more than USD 2 million in rainy-day funds and has seen a 225% increase in user growth during the Covid-19 pandemic. The company also has experienced an YoY growth of 172% in on-demand financial therapy usage in September 2021.&nbsp;Key customers and partnershipsHoneyBee had more than 60 middle-market companies as clients as of September 2021. Notable customers of the company include Alameda County Community Food Bank, DC Central Kitchen, Kate Somerville, Community Catalyst of California, Southwest Water Company, Straus Family Creamery, Asian Art Museum, Pasadena Humane Society, and Peachtree Health as of the same date.In October 2022, HoneyBee formed a partnership with Hanmi Bank to offer a new Choice Checking account, specifically targeting unbanked and underbanked communities.Funding and financialsIn September 2021, the company raised USD 105.7 million through a combination of debt and equity funding. This includes a USD 100 million debt facility from CIM and USD 5.7 million in equity from a round led by FFVC. The company expects to use the funding to expand its sales, engineering, and customer success team.

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.

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.

HoneyBee

Financial Wellness Tools

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HoneyBee secures USD 105.7 million in equity and debt funding

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