Money Moves 2020
RIDE THE STOCK MARKET WITH TRAINING WHEELS
Know someone with only $ 50 to invest? Mobile app
Stash offers fractional purchases of stocks, and
Acorns, a “round-up” app, moves extra pennies from
credit- and debit-card purchases into ETFs. No-fee,
no-minimum custodial Roth IRAs are available from
both Schwab and Fidelity for youngsters with earned
income. Roths grow tax-free for retirement, and origi-
nal contributions can be taken out without penalty or
tax at any time. A word of warning, though: Don’t try
this if your kid might qualify for need-based aid from
a private college. —A.E.THE FORBES FINTECH 50
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MARCH 20 20 FORBES.COM
I
N V E S T M E N T G U ID
E(^) T
H
E
L
I
S
T
ICAPITAL NETWORK
NEW YORK CITY
INVESTING
Platform allows high-net-worth
clients to invest as little as
$25,000 per fund in private eq-
uity, debt, VC and hedge funds.
FUNDING: $80 million; latest
valuation of $700 million^1
BONA FIDES: $47 billion in assets
invested through the platform
COFOUNDER & CEO:
Lawrence Calcano, 57
INSURIFY
Ì
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
INSURANCE
Comparison site aims to use
AI to sell auto, home and life
policies online, without buyers
talking to human agents.
FUNDING: $30 million
BONA FIDES: Has closed 130,000
auto policies, 67% of them
without touch of human agent
COFOUNDER & CEO:
Snejina Zacharia, 43, a native
of Bulgaria
KABBAGE
ATLANTA
B2B LENDING
Its automated system approves
lines of credit up to $200,000
in minutes. New service helps
small businesses manage
invoices and receivables.
FUNDING: $489 million; latest
valuation of $1.2 billion
BONA FIDES: Has loaned more
than $9 billion, including about
$3 billion in 2019, to 220,000
small businesses
COFOUNDERS:
CEO Rob Frohwein, 52;
president Kathryn Petralia, 49
KINDUR
Ì
NEW YORK CITY
INVESTING
Hybrid advice service lures
Boomers with free robo-
retirement-income plans, then
pitches comprehensive money
management with a dedicated
human advisor for 0.50% of
assets on accounts of $5,000-
plus, 0.25% on $500,000-plus.
FUNDING: $11 million; latest
valuation of $35 million^1
BONA FIDES: 21,000 people with
$14 billion in retirement savings
have built free plans on Kindur
since its launch last April
FOUNDER & CEO:
Rhian Horgan, 42
LEMONADE
NEW YORK CITY
INSURANCE
Sells renters’ insurance from
$5 a month and homeowners’
from $25 a month using AI to
approve coverage in 90 sec-
onds and pay claims in as lit-
tle as three minutes. Discour-
ages bogus claims by donating
excess (after claims, expenses
and fixed fee) to charity. Now
in 26 states, D.C. and Germany.
FUNDING: $480 million; latest
valuation of $2.1 billion^1
BONA FIDES: More than 500,000
customers, producing annual
recurring revenue of $115 million
COFOUNDERS: CEO Daniel
Schreiber, 49; COO Shai
Wininger, 46
LIVELY
Ì
SAN FRANCISCO
PERSONAL FINANCE
Digital health-savings-account
platform offers workers access
to fee-free investing (through
TD Ameritrade) of money
they’ve socked away tax-free
for future medical costs.
FUNDING: $42 million; latest
valuation of $112 million^1
BONA FIDES: Users have nearly
$200 million in accounts, double
the amount a year ago
COFOUNDERS: CEO Alex Cyriac,
37, and COO Shobin Uralil, 38
lending out your margined securities to short-
sellers, except that there you’re unlikely to get cut
in on the revenue.
Another Coinbase product, called USD Coin,
developed in partnership with cryptocurrency
exchange Circle, lets customers put up U.S. dol-
lars in exchange for a cryptocurrency that has the
same value but can be traded more quickly. The
dollars in question earn interest that Coinbase
shares with its customers.
Coinbase says it handled $80 billion of trans-
actions last year. (Binance boasts of a dai-
ly volume that annualizes to $1 trillion.) Is that
enough for a profit? CFO Haas allows that the
bottom line flits in and out of the plus column
from month to month. But, she adds, if you ex-
clude non-cash items like charges for goodwill
amortization and the hypothetical value of em-
ployee options, Coinbase has been solidly in the
black for several years.
In a firm fixated on growth, the money goes out
the door almost as quickly as it comes in. Coin-
base has quadrupled its staff to 1,000 since hir-
ing chief operating officer Emilie Choi two years
ago. At headquarters, construction workers can
barely keep up with the new hires streaming out
of the onboarding room. There are offices in New
York, Dublin and Tokyo. And then there are bets
on the future.
Choi, who came to Coinbase after doing
business development at LinkedIn, has taken
the venture capital portfolio from nothing to 60
firms. It includes Bison Trails in New York City
and Alchemy in San Francisco, both aiming to
help corporations use blockchains, and Amber
Group in Shenzhen, China, which is applying
artificial intelligence to cryptocurrency trading.
Says Choi: “A lot of the stuff that we’re doing in
the venture side of the house is things we prob-
ably wouldn’t do as a principal but that we think
are really interesting.”
Armstrong adds, “These venture bets could be
huge, but we don’t know if they’re gonna work.
SNEJINA ZACHARIA