Fintech Salt Labs used this pitch deck to raise $10 million
- Salt Labs is a fintech that wants to help hourly workers build wealth.
- Jason Lee, founder of DailyPay and former CEO of Goldman Sachs, founded the startup in 2022.
- Salt Labs used this 13-page pitch deck to raise a $10 million pre-seed round.
This fintech helps hourly workers build wealth through a reward points system.
Salt Labs is a loyalty and payment technology company. The startup has just launched its app, Salt, which allows hourly workers to earn points, called “Salt,” for every hour they work. Salt can be redeemed for goods and experiences, including value-creating resources such as savings bonds.
“The mission of Salt Labs is to enable hourly workers to own the long-term value of their work,” Jason Lee, founder and CEO of Salt Labs, told Insider. “And we want to effectively create asset ownership for the work being done.”
Lee previously founded DailyPay, an earned salary access startup. Prior to DailyPay, he was a managing director in the equity capital markets group at Goldman Sachs.
Salt Labs announced a $10 million pre-seed round on March 29, led by Fin Capital. Lee declined to share the startup’s valuation.
Lee compared Salt to a frequent flyer miles program. In the same way that an aviator earns “miles” for each flight, employees earn one Salt for every hour they work. But unlike airline miles and other rewards programs, the salt earned by employees never expires, meaning it can be earned over their tenure.
Salt can be redeemed for everything from educational resources such as training programmes, to savings products and personal consumption such as travelling. Salt can also be transferred between users as a peer-to-peer payment app.
The new LinkedIn for hourly workers
Nearly 56% of the US workforce is paid hourly, according to a 2021 report from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. But resource-building resources are not very accessible or accommodating to this demographic.
“Have you ever tried to roll over a 401(k)? It’s very difficult to roll over to your next job,” Lee said. “So what’s happening is the hourly workforce will have about five 401(k)s at seven different employers, and there’s all this leakage that’s happening.”
Salt Labs launched its app on April 1 and already has more than 2,000 users. Their customers are low- to middle-income workers, and since it’s a direct-to-consumer, any employee can sign up and self-verify their hours.
Lee declined to share the startup’s revenue strategy. However, page six of the pitch deck describes “potential Salt applications,” which include lending, recruiting, background checks, advertising and loyalty.
One of Lee’s plans going forward is to make Salt redeemable for cash. He also wants to roll out Salt for employers to offer as employee benefits.
Lee wants to add features like “vesting” – where a worker can earn extra salt by working at a given job for a certain period of time. For example, if a worker stays at a job for three months, they can start earning 1.5 salt per hour instead of one salt per hour.
He also envisions Salt becoming like a LinkedIn for hourly workers, where an employee’s Salt earnings profile can be displayed to employers as a digital CV.
“Companies are in a labor crunch. They’re having a very difficult time hiring people, finding labor, all those things,” Lee said. “And so we think this is a perfect storm — having to figure out, ‘Hey, how can we actually create an engaging, loyalty-building relationship with the employee while delivering things of value to her?’
“Sure, initially there are some points to redeem for some goods and services, but eventually this thing becomes a tool or a digital resume,” he added.
