Jassby, a Waltham-based fintech company behind a budgeting and finance app geared toward families, has raised $5 million in new funding.
The round was led by Moneta Capital and Needham Bank, with participation from existing investors Blumberg Capital, Correlation VC and PnP Ventures. It doubles Jassby's venture funding, bringing it to a total of $10 million.
With the funding, Jassby plans to double its headcount, hiring 30 new employees in software engineering, marketing and other departments by the end of 2020. The startup also wants to bring its user base to 1 million people in the same time frame—an ambitious goal, since Jassby just surpassed 100,000 users.
Jassby's flagship product is the "Family Finance App," a platform through which children can receive money from relatives, then save, donate or spend it. The idea is to teach children good spending habits while streamlining the flow of money within families.
"I wanted to create something that would be very comfortable and easy and natural: a digital platform to help families with young kids and teens manage their financials and, at the same time, spread financial literacy," founder and CEO Benjamin "Benny" Nachman told BostInno. "I believe that the best way to learn financial literacy is through doing—learning by doing, learning by acting, not learning by lectures."
Nachman is no stranger to the fintech world. He previously founded and ran Southborough-based Credorax, an e-commerce payment cards acquiring and processing company. He stepped down as CEO of that company at the end of 2015. By 2017, he had launched Jassby.
Nachman is also a parent himself: He has two boys, 9 and 11 years old, whose financial education has given him insight as he's built up Jassby.
"When the time came, and my older one started asking us for allowance, I realized how inefficient it was to try and give him allowance and how difficult it was for him to actually use the money that we did give him," Nachman said.
A survey by investment banking firm Piper Jaffray in 2019 found that on average, American teenagers spend about $2,600 each year on food and clothes. Moreover, much of that shopping is being done online. Nachman and his team believe that creates a market opportunity for Jassby. The app can essentially replace the cash allowance that has dominated children's financials for so long.
Jassby describes its app as a combination of "a digital wallet and shopping app." Nachman said his ultimate goal is to create a "super app" that brings a suite of services into one place, much like WeChat. Jassby has its own curated store, through which users can buy products like videogames, phone accessories, makeup and snacks. Users can also choose to donate to a number of charities.
"I call it our own walled garden," Nachman said. "It's very curated. It's very safe. It's very age-appropriate. We have the Jassby store, in-app, that we allow people to shop in. ... I think the difference-maker, for me, is that it's super-app-ecosystem-driven, compared to a plastic card that's been with us since 1932."
Over the next year, Nachman said his team will build and scale the Family Finance App platform and introduce new services. Some of that has already begun with the rollout of a series of B2B2C services: Jassby sells to a clientele of small businesses, schools and sports clubs, which in turn do business with children and teens.
Nachman also plans to fundraise even more aggressively in 2020. His goal is to raise an additional $20 million within the next 12 months.
