Ascension is an early-stage VC built by exited entrepreneurs to back the next generation of tech and impact founders. Run by an experienced and diverse team of successful entrepreneurs, we have been relentlessly dedicated to finding the UK’s best Seed-stage startups since 2014. Ascension benefits from the active industry connections essential for the sourcing and development of deal-flow and due diligence. The team has co-invested with the UK’s leading angels and VCs, key to securing follow-on funding as the portfolio businesses move to their next stage of growth. We believe in building an inclusive, community driven brand that can benefit the wider UK tech ecosystem and strive to work with conviction, integrity, humour, and humility.

Ascension

Village Global is an early stage venture capital firm backed by some of the world's most successful entrepreneurs.

Village Global

Balderton Capital is a Venture Capital Investor that supports technology businesses. They support Founders at every stage of their journey. They provide advice, introduce portfolio leaders to professional service providers, and invite portfolio leaders to workshops and community events where they can meet one another.

Balderton Capital

Northzone is a multi-stage venture capital fund that seeks to invest in the healthcare, semiconductors, software, hardware, artificial intelligence, blockchain, and gaming industries.

Northzone

QED Investors is an investment firm that supports high-growth companies and businesses. The firm typically provides a combination of both capital and capability. But common to all the firm's partnerships is a shared conviction that information plays a decisive role in the success of the company, a mutual desire for a high degree of direct engagement, and a shared enthusiasm for experimentation and learning.

QED Investors

Latitude Ventures is the series B+ sister fund to UK-based seed fund LocalGlobe. Latitude invests in emerging break-out companies from LocalGlobe, as well as more widely in the most ambitious founders. Latitude and LocalGlobe have been early investor in iconic companies including Transferwise, Zoopla, Improbable, Robinhood, Citymapper and Secret Escapes, as well as emerging stars including Tessian, TravelPerk, Flow Commerce and Raisin.

Latitude

Silicon Valley Bank works with technology, life science, cleantech, venture capital, private equity, and premium wine businesses. SVB provides industry knowledge and connections, financing, treasury management, corporate investment, and international banking services to its clients worldwide through 27 U.S. offices and seven international operations.   Banking innovative companies and exclusive wineries, Silicon Valley Bank’s diverse financial services, knowledge, global network, and world-class service increase its clients’ probability of success. Forbes Magazine ranks SVB among America’s Best Banks, and Fortune Magazine named SVB one of the Best Companies to Work For in 2012.

Silicon Valley Bank

BlackRock is an investment management company that provides its services to a diverse range of clients, including institutions, intermediaries, foundations, and individual investors. The firm operates as a global asset manager, overseeing and advising on a wide array of investment portfolios. In addition to its role as an investment manager, BlackRock is also known for its technological innovations and solutions that support various aspects of the financial industry. The company's multifaceted approach encompasses investment management, financial technology, and serving a broad spectrum of clients in the financial ecosystem.

BlackRock

Smash Capital is a Emerging growth and later stage consumer internet and software VC firm.

Smash Capital

Social Tech Trust is a UK's leading dedicated investor of socially motivated tech. They challenge their selves and others to think differently about the relationship between tech and society. Their purpose is to transform lives with tech - The internet has revolutionised their world. They exist to ensure that the ongoing tech revolution delivers positive and equitable social impact: that when their lives are transformed by tech, they are transformed for the better. Their vision is for a world where social transformation is the driving force behind tech - Tech can open up opportunities previously out of reach, creating inspirational change. Their experience shows that when social transformation is the driving force behind tech, it has the greatest potential to improve lives. This is why they want a world where people’s needs inform and shape tech from the outset, to deliver the best return for everyone. They identify where tech has the greatest potential to transform lives, then back people and organisations to demonstrate what’s possible. Building on this knowledge, they seek out and join forces with others to create a supportive environment for those striving to realise the full promise of socially motivated tech. Their core purpose is at the heart of what they do – they transform lives with tech. Whether they are leading the conversation about transformative tech, enabling socially motivated tech ventures to grow, or directly investing in change, they work hard to achieve their vision – and deliver with pride.

Social Tech Trust

LocalGlobe is a UK-based venture capital firm that focuses on seed and impact investments. Seeding ambitious UK founders since 1999 inc Citymapper, Improbable, Lovefilm, Moo, Tweetdeck, Transferwise, and Zoopla.

LocalGlobe

XYZ Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm that supports startups build companies in the fintech and insurtech industries.

XYZ Venture Capital

The Fair By Design Fund is a partnership between Ascension Ventures, Finance Birmingham, Wayra UK, Nominet Trust, Big Society Capital and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. The Fund will invest in companies seeking loans and equity funding from Seed through to Series A and beyond, and will share Ascension Ventures and Finance Birmingham’s co-investment philosophy, seeking deal-flow and co-investment opportunities from other funds, VC’s and angel investors. The Fund is ready to deploy capital into exceptional businesses designed to make an impact on the poverty premium. These will include for-profit and nonprofit companies; tech startups, Community Interest Companies (CICs), charities and private limited companies.

Fair By Design Fund

Wagestream

GajiGesa is the preferred financial wellness partner for employers in Indonesia. GajiGesa's powerful fintech platform is built to help millions of hardworking Indonesians take control of their financial lives with dignity. The GajiGesa app provides member employees with earned wage access, financial education, and other financial management tools to improve their long-term financial health responsibly. It also empowers employer partners with an enterprise-grade HR analytics platform to improve employee productivity, engagement, and retention by reducing financial stress for their teams.    The company has seen 12x growth since January with more large enterprises keen to embrace this financial wellness solution. And we have doubled our overall enterprise customer base in the last quarter and now partner with 60+ companies, serving tens of thousands of employees.    Based on GajiGesa’s most recent survey, for employers that partner with GajiGesa, over 75% of their employees have stopped using informal lenders for short term needs because our EWA solution gives them the financial security they need under the purview of the employer. GajiGesa is also increasingly popular for employees that have micro-businesses at home. They often use GajiGesa and use their salary as working capital rather than turning to informal lenders. Health related expenses is another common reason for GajiGesa usage.    In early May, the company launched GajiTim, Southeast Asia’s first employee management app for MSMEs and SMEs to manage their workforce efficiently bringing transparency in income tracking and salary calculation. The app is aimed at businesses with between 5 to 100 workers and has gained more than 50,000 active users since it was launched in mid-March.    This latest product innovation supercharges GajiGesa’s effort to expand financial resilience - establishing greater transparency in employee management as well as creating a holistic and meaningful integrated employee benefits solution for businesses of all sizes and their employees.   The company was founded in 2020 by Martyna Malinowska (formerly Product Lead at Standard Chartered Bank, Product Director at LenddoEFL) and Vidit Agarwal (formerly Head of Business Development APAC at Stripe, COO at CARRO, and first employee at Uber in Asia). The company is Headquartered in Jakarta with a distributed team also based in India and Singapore. GajiGesa announced a US$2.5 million Seed round in February (led by Defy.vc and Quest Ventures) and an undisclosed growth round in early May from additional strategic investors including OCBC NISP Ventura,  the Founders of Kopi Kenangan, and other Indonesian investors and family offices.

Wagestream is a financial services firm that allows employees to stream their earned wages into their accounts through an instant app. The app allows them to have complete control over when they get paid. It also effectively ends the need for employee advances, loans, and employee stress suffered from short-term, unplanned financial obligations. The company aims to play a key role in reducing the poverty premium and prevent employees from entering cycles of debt caused by overdraft fees, high-interest credit, or payday loans.  Peter Briffett and Portman Wills was founded in 2018 and is based in London, England. It is backed by QED, Fair by Design, London Co-Investment Fund, and Village Global.

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.

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

Financial Wellness Tools

Over four million hospitality employees offered financial flexibility with new Harri and Wagestream partnership

GajiGesa

MMV Europe & Asia-Pacific

Quest Ventures

Smile Group

Defy.vc

Next Billion Ventures

GK-Plug and Play Indonesia

January Capital

Bundamedik Healthcare System

Visa

Wagestream partners with Visa offering Europe’s first Visa Direct service

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.

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

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 end-to-end financial wellness solutions ranging from educational resources to interactive platforms/tools for managing finances as well as access to registered investment advisors.

Provides a platform for employees, through their employers, to access earned wages or obtain emergency interest-free funds/loans, which are settled through their 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).

Apps and platforms that allow consumers to obtain personalized financial advice, automate savings, create budgets, and track and manage spending.

Offers interactive platforms/tools for employers to provide personalized financial education resources and/or coaching to its employees.

Solutions that enable companies to offer and manage employee-sponsored emergency savings accounts through automated payroll deductions.

Platforms for employers to support employees with other debts such as mortgages, credit card debt, etc. through repayment assistance, refinancing options, and automated administrative processes.

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

ANALYST_QUICK_TAKE

<div>
Wagestream, the UK-based financial wellness platform, successfully raised funding of GBP 17.5 million (~USD 21.8 million). British Patient Capital led this round with Lombard Odier Investment Managers, Northzone, and others also participating, bringing Wagestream's total funding to USD 278.6 million.
With this investment, Wagestream plans to expand its services by bringing in new offerings. The planned introductions include a credit-builder card, shopping discounts, AI-driven financial coaching, and loans structured for affordability. All these features are set for launch within the current year.
As of now, Wagestream caters to a user base of over 3 million people in the UK, Spain, and the US, who are seeking wellness benefits. The platform collaborates with over 1,000 employers across these regions to provide these benefits.
</div> Analyst QuickTake: 
 Six months ago, Wagestream <a href="https: 
//sp-edge.com/updates/22520"> acquired Keebo </a> , a UK-based neobank to integrate Keebo’s suite of products, technology, software, and workforce with Wagestream and expand its financial services offerings to those with poor credit histories.

Wagestream

About EDGE

Contact Us

Resources

Area of Focus

Technology Research Made Effortless