Mission-driven fintech company Propel raised $50 million in a Series B round led by Nyca Partners. Propel's mission is to help low-income Americans improve their financial health. The company's free app is called Providers, designed as a one-stop-shop for Americans to manage government benefits and other income side-by-side. Jimmy Chen, founder and CEO of Propel, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.

Closing Bell

Propel Raises $50 Million to Provide Financial Tools to Low-Income Americans

mission driven Fintech company propel raising $50 million in a series B round led by N. Y. C. A partner's propels mission is to help low income americans improve their financial health. The company's free app is called providers which was designed as a one stop shop for americans to manage government benefits and other income side by side here. Now to discuss with jimmy chan founder and ceo of propelled jimmy, welcome to the show, can you offer us more details about propels mission and how it's helping low income americans? Absolutely thank you so much for having me. So propel. We build an app that helps americans low income manage their government benefits and money. It's used by over five million families across the country each month And we make money by referring our users to 3rd Party companies that help them to either save money or make more money. We also operate the debit card and a digital banking program that allows us to earn financial services fees when money is spent. The original inspiration behind providers was really this idea that people who use safety net services like the food stamp program, commonly known as snap. They deserve the same quality of software as anyone else who uses a credit card or a debit card to buy groceries. And so we took one of the core ideas behind that, that's easy to check your balance and see how much you have left and that there ought to be Fintech tools to help you to manage your finances and we applied it to the government benefits safety net and so that was sort of how we got our start. But really the company has scaled and grown over the last few years to the point where now we're able to serve these five million families each month. So Purple says it's at providers can help users track food stamps, government benefits, cash balances. Can you share more about what the app offers and how many people are using it currently jimmy. Yeah. You know, one of the things we've learned from talking to low-income families over the last few years is that for someone who's making under $40,000 per year, it's really the combination of government benefits and money that help you to make it through the month. There are big programs like the food stamp program, officially known as snap. But there are other programs like Tanith and Wick. There is the earned income tax credit, the S. S. I. Program for people who have a disability and that for a lot of low income families, their financial life really the day to day management of it is, is all about taking these disks separate programs smashing them up with any earned income you've got from a job or a side hustle, trying to figure out is that going to be enough to pay my bills, does it on the right schedule or not? So providers is really an app that aims to help people manage that ongoing monthly challenge to decrease the stress in their lives to make it easier for them to make ends meet jimmy. What led you to start a company that's focusing on the poverty problem in our country? I started propelled eight years ago. Before that I was a product manager at facebook out in California. Um, but before all of that, I was a kid who grew up in a household that was loving but also had challenges around money. We were food insecure at various points. And then when I got into Silicon Valley and had a career in tech, I just kept thinking about how people solve the problems that they understand and that people in tech tend to understand the challenges of higher income folks because that's the demographic of people who really have the resources to start a technology company or to invest in one, But that in 2020 to almost everyone in America regardless of their income level, has a smartphone that can get on the Internet. And so there's this big opportunity to think about the needs of people who don't look like tech founders. We don't have that background of kind of growing up with a lot of resources. Um and so my inspiration behind propel was this idea of like can we take the playbook of companies in Silicon Valley who know how to build software really well, Those tools can be agnostic that that that you know, taking those techniques and tools and applying them to some of the challenges faced by low income families can make both an impactful company and an interesting business model because it's such an underserved market Jimmy, have about 30 seconds. But I do want to ask you how have low-income Americans been historically overlooked by fintech companies. I think it's a lot of just not understanding what their actual pain points are. So something like how do you check your balance on your tv T card? Sounds like such a niche. Sounds sounds like such a like a, you know, inside baseball kind of thing. But the reality is there are 40 million americans who have that need each month, multiple times a month. So it's actually like a really big pain point. Just feels like a hidden one because this is not the kind of program that gets a lot of press. It's not the kind of experience that lots of people have in this country. Thank you for wrapping that up in 30 seconds. We really appreciate it, appreciate your time. Thank you for everything you're doing. We hope you come back Jimmy Chen, founder and ceo of propel