Fintech Startup WageFi Raises $400,000 Pre-Seed Funding

• WageFi integrates with payroll providers such as ADP and Square to provide early access to payroll.
• It also provides a debit card that employers can issue to employees for reimbursement.
• WageFi raised $400,000 from investors, including former American Express and Goldman Sachs executives.

New fintech startup WageFi aims to help employees access a portion of their pre-salary earnings, along with a host of other financial wellness benefits.

Prshant Batra, who founded the company this year and serves as CEO, previously worked for Goldman Sachs’ consumer banking unit, Marcus, and American Express.

WageFi just raised a pre-seed round of $400,000, which includes investment from Batra’s former colleagues at American Express and Goldman Sachs: Ash Gupta, former president of global credit risk and information; Manish Gupta, who was executive director of the company; and Dipanjan Bhattacharjee, a former Goldman Sachs CEO who now serves as COO of Nirvana, a digital finance startup.

In addition to providing early access to payroll, WageFi assembles the infrastructure for employers to provide multiple financial benefits such as financial planning, expense reimbursement and personalized employee rewards. The startup’s technology connects to payroll, accounting and banking platforms and is already integrated with ADP, Gusto and Square.

WageFi also offers a white label prepaid card that employers issue for expense reimbursement or employee rewards.

WageFi customers include restaurants, plumbing and HVAC companies. The start-up mainly plans to work with small and medium-sized companies within the service industry, which WageFi believes are underserved by financial products.

“We’re trying to create an ecosystem where it will be free for employers to use because I think all these players in the market are using existing payment rails that don’t work for an hourly wage setup,” Batra said.

Batra said WageFi brought on 700 users when it first came out in July, but with the new funding it now plans to have at least 20,000 people on the platform by January or February next year. In addition to adding more customers, WageFi also plans to launch a mobile app on October 28.

Although this is the first institutional funding for WageFi, Batra said he is not rushing any other fundraising for the company.

“We have a lot of VC interest, but since we just raised this angel round, I don’t want to go too fast,” he said. “We really want to build a lot of value.”

Here’s an exclusive look at the pitch deck WageFi used to raise $400,000 in pre-funding.