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Moov Financial Raises $5.5 Million Seed Round

August 18, 2020

Moov Financial, an open source embedded banking platform, has raised $5.5M in seed funding led by Bain Capital Ventures, with participation from Canapi Ventures, Commerce Ventures, Gradient Ventures, RRE Ventures, Uncorrelated Ventures, and 27 angel investors. Veridian Credit Union also participated in the round after signing a strategic partnership agreement.

Based in Cedar Falls, Moov’s open source platform allows companies to quickly deploy basic financial service solutions to seamlessly receive funds, store value, and remit payments.

This round of funding will allow Moov to continue to build its community, expand its engineering team, accelerate its product roadmap, and deepen partnerships and enterprise agreements.

“Iowa’s rich tradition in insurance and financial services, coupled with the state’s great business climate, make it the perfect place for startups such as Moov to put down roots and to grow and innovate,” said Debi Durham, Director of the Iowa Economic Development Authority and Iowa Finance Authority. “I’m proud that Moov is choosing to build right here in Iowa, where fintech companies are having an impact on a national and global scale.”

Moov is rebuilding banking infrastructure for a cloud-native world without any legacy technology dependencies. Moov’s banking-as-a-service platform takes a developer-first approach of being open source, portable to cloud providers or on-premises, modular for customization, and decoupled from any single bank program.

After spending a decade building new technology platforms on legacy banking infrastructure, in late 2018, Wade Arnold and Bob Smith began building the “Moovment”, creating a developer-first open source community focused on low-level financial infrastructure components. These components empower SaaS companies, digital banks, and fintechs to directly embed financial transaction capabilities within their product offerings, or leverage Moov to power additional infrastructure not provided by legacy offerings.

“Seamless banking services have become a consumer expectation for technology companies in the same way the internet, cloud, and mobile have done in the past,” said Wade Arnold, founder and CEO of Moov. “We see history being repeated in fintech where proprietary solutions were first to market and subsequently replaced by community-led efforts surrounding open source projects.”

Arnold previously founded fintech company Banno, originally called T8 Webware, in Cedar Falls in 2008. Banno was acquired by Jack Henry & Associates in 2014.

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Moov Financial Raises $5.5 Million Seed Round | Clay & Milk
A central Iowa ag-tech accelerator has secured more backers and finally has a name. The Greater Des Moines Partnership first announced the accelerator last year, naming four initial investors. On Monday, the Partnership said the program will be called the "Iowa AgriTech Accelerator" and named three new investors. The new investors include Grinnell Mutual, Kent Corp. and Sukup Manufacturing, all Iowa companies. They join investors Deere & Co., Peoples Co., Farmers Mutual Hail Insurance Co. and DuPont Pioneer. Each investor has agreed to put up $100,000 for the first year of the accelerator. Startups entering the program will receive $40,000 in seed funding in exchange for 6 percent equity. Tej Dhawan, an angel investor and local startup mentor, is serving as interim director until the AgriTech Accelerator names a permanent leader. Dhawan held a similar role with the GIA before Brian Hemesath was named as managing director. As interim director, Dhawan said his main job includes hiring the accelerator's executive director, establishing a business structure and initial recruiting for the first cohort. The accelerator will place few filters, such as location and product, on the applicant pool, Dhawan said. "When you’re seeking innovation, innovation can come from every corner of the world so why restrict ourselves," he said. One area the the AgriTech Accelerator won't recruit from is biotech. For its first cohort, the AgriTech Accelerator will work out of the GIA's space in Des Moines' East Village, Dhawan said. A future, permanent home is still to be decided. The accelerator's program will host startups from mid-July through mid-October, ending with an event connected to the annual World Food Prize. The GIA, which the AgriTech Accelerator is based on, also ends with presentations at an industry event. The accelerator has also started lining up a mentor pool. The Iowa Corn Growers Association, Iowa Soybean Association and the Iowa Pork Producers Association have agreed to provide mentors, as has Iowa State University. While the AgriTech Accelerator is loosely based off of the GIA, it will differ in its business structure, Dhawan said. The GIA runs through a for-profit model for both operations and its investment fund. The AgriTech Accelerator will have a nonprofit model for its operations and a for-profit setup for its fund. Dhawan said the nonprofit model is being used so the accelerator can better work with other nonprofit partners, such as trade associations. "These are all organizations that are nonprofits and can be amazing stakeholders without ever having to be investors in the accelerator," he said. "It becomes easier to work with trade associations in their nonprofit role when we are also a nonprofit." When it's up and running, the AgriTech Accelerator would be one of a handful of ag-focused startup development programs in Iowa. Others include the Ag Startup Engine out of Iowa State University and the Rural Ventures Alliance from Iowa MicroLoan. Matthew Patane is the managing editor and co-founder of Clay & Milk. Send him an email at mpatane@clayandmilk.com.
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