Rize Money Inc., an Arlington startup that launched with the goal of helping consumers automate savings and investments, has raked in an $11.4 million round.
The fintech’s Series A was led by Alpha Edison and Morpheus Ventures, both of Los Angeles, and included participation from current investors including Walkabout Ventures of Los Angeles, Raptor Group of Boston, Rucker Park Capital and Third Prime of New York City, Red & Blue Ventures of Philadelphia and Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund and Graham Holdings, both of D.C.
The funding marks Rize’s pivot from a consumer-focused company to a business-to-business model. Rize is now serving other fintechs, builders of financial products who can use the platform to speed up development time.
The platform combines bank account access, payment processing, card issuance and compliance, according to Rize’s funding announcement. The platform runs on a proprietary technology Rize dubs “Synthetic Core.”
That core is “inherently able to interconnect pipes that are often times siloed, such as those between brokerage and deposit accounts, amongst many others, which provides for the potential of new innovative financial products and services,” Howard Ko of Morpheus said in a statement.
Rize pivoted upon realizing that its original goal of creating consumer products “that match how people actually think about and use money in the real world” would only be possible if the financial industry's infrastructure was updated, the company said.
“This turned out to be a massive infrastructure problem, not just a user-experience problem,” CEO and co-founder Justin Howell said in a statement. So instead, Rize is now looking to “help fintech builders build while [Rize] takes care of the plumbing.”
Rize plans to use the funding to grow its team and add to the product, including expanding in areas of compliance, security and fraud monitoring. The company also plans to launch platforms in new disciplines such as brokerage, small business banking, crypto and credit, according to the release.
Founded in 2015, Rize has raised $19.19 million to date, according to Pitchbook, including $2 million in 2018 and $3.76 million in 2020. This most recent raise closed in July.
