Chicago startup Bridge Money wants to give its users a way to monetize one of their greatest assets — their data.
Described as a “first-of-its-kind fintech company," Bridge Money members earn money by linking an existing debit card or bank account to the app and sharing fully consented and anonymized data with third-party businesses through various in-app money-making activities, such as cashback, surveys, ad viewing, referrals, and raffles, among others.
The Chicago startup recently announced $5.8 million in seed funding led by TMV.
Additional investors in the round include Founder Collective, Kapor Capital, Acumen America, Bread & Butter Ventures, Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, Plug and Play Ventures, Basecamp Fund (Alumni Ventures), and Ulu Venture.
Big names in the finance world have also thrown their support toward fintech startup as the seed round follows commitments to Bridge Money from prominent angel investors that include Margo Georgiadis, the former Discover Card CMO and Ancestry.com CEO; Abhi Dhar, CTO of TransUnion; Daren Cotter, founder and CEO of InboxDollars; Aaron Rankin, CTO of Sprout Social; and Todd Benson, former head of Private Equity at Citigroup.
Founded by Lalit Janak and David Wright in 2019, Bridge Money says it puts privacy and consent first. None of the information shared is personally identifiable information, Janak told Chicago Inno.
“We’ll never offer any income-generating action in our app without your express consent," he said.
Janak's background includes time at Citigroup, where he originated and traded fixed income securities on Wall Street. It's there that he also realized he wanted to make a tangible and positive impact on people’s lives, later launching Bridge Money.
Janak envisions Bridge Money as empowering lower-income Americans to earn supplemental income — with the most active members earning more than $200 a month using the app.
"When you look at the landscape today, data is collected from consumers and shared amongst businesses constantly, intrusively and without consent,” he said. "That’s the bedrock of the digital advertising industry as it exists today."
Data sharing has faced controversy over consent in recent years with companies like Google pledging to phase out third-party cookies on its Chrome browser by late 2024 and Apple similarly adding that all third-party applications automatically have their data protected in its newest operating systems.
Since its founding in 2019, Bridge has partnered with leading financial services platforms, including Plaid Unit, and Visa. Bridge Money takes a 10% to 20% cut of the money-making activity that occurs in the app.
