Self Financial announced it has closed on $40 million in additional financing.
The Austin-based fintech startup has raised $77 million to date, including $20 million raised in February.
Meritech Capital led the latest round with participation from existing investors including Altos Ventures, Conductive Ventures and Silverton Partners.
Despite the Pandemic, Self has seen its customer base rise 250 percent. It has also more than doubled its staff from 50 employees to 115 employees.
Self Financial plans to use the funds raised to serve more customers.
“Self is addressing a systemic problem of financial inequality in the right way. It has built the technology while maintaining low operating costs to be able to offer accessible products and building lasting relationships with its customers,” Max Motschwiller, general partner at Meritech, said in a news release. “Meritech invested in Self because it has a proven and powerful business model, but we believe in the company because it empowers people to steadfastly achieve their goals and dreams.”
Self provides secured credit cards to people so they can build their credit history.
CEO James Garvey co-founded Self in 2015 after a time where he thought he set up his credit cards for automatic payments, yet hadn’t. When he realized his mistake a few months later his credit score had already fallen from 750 to 594. The experience gave him a deeper appreciation of the challenges millions of Americans face in building and maintaining credit, and so he decided to use his background as a technologist and entrepreneur to develop a better solution to help people overcome those obstacles.
“Despite increased adversity, this year we’ve seen demand for our products increase as people look to get control of their finances where possible. Fortunately, we also see our customers keeping their commitment to themselves by sticking to their plans,” Garvey said in a news release. “The latest infusion of capital from Meritech and our other investors means that Self can continue its mission to support our customers on their journey to build credit and savings and be financially healthy.”