Till Financial's kids' spend app gets $5 million in backing.
An application-based bank account to aide in building responsible spending habits for kids and teens.
Investors, investors, they’re everywhere!
The New York-based banking platform Till Financial announced this week that its application for collaborative family banking garnered $5 million in Seed round support from significant venture capital firms and Angel investors, including Melinda Gates’ Pivotal Ventures, Elysian Park Ventures, Magnify Ventures, Afore Capital, The Gramercy Fund, The Scout Fund from Lightspeed Ventures, SM Ventures, Alpine Meridian Ventures, and Luge Capital.
Angel investors included Petal co-founders Jason Gross, Andrew Endicott, David Ehrich, and Jack Arenas; Drizly co-founders Cory Rellas, Justin Robinson, Spencer Fraizer, and Nick Rellas; participation was also noted from Joe Proto and Chris McCann.
What is Till anyway?
Till Financial is a collaborative banking platform built for families and is powered primarily through a mobile application. The key factor that sets Till apart from other competitors is its specific aim to empower families to start financial spending education for children at an earlier age.
In, what seems to be the distant past, parents taught responsible spending through cash allowances and specially designed piggy banks. In the instance of my childhood, there was no piggy bank, just a dirty old shoebox with various envelopes labeled for different “expenses,” and I made contributions to each of them every glorious payday. However, as the tides and times continue to change, we are moving more towards a cashless society, which calls for innovation.
Till has developed a way to ditch piggy banks while encouraging kids to save money through responsible spending. Parents can easily manage, track, and assess account activity through the application interface and monitor how cash flows through the family tree.
For parents, this offers peace of mind. For kids and teenagers, the barriers associated with asking for money on a weekly or daily basis are removed. Ultimately, Till looks to reduce the strain around conversations regarding money between parent and child(ren).
Methodology
Giving your child access to your bank account can be scary; however, Till believes that a financially prepared teen is better off than one that isn’t. The company operates on the notion that teenagers are eager to learn money management before becoming financially independent.
Till is not meant to be the only established bank account in the family, rather a vehicle for teaching and discussing spending habits ahead of the curve. Preparing a teen to be financially responsible before college or “adulting” is advantageous not only to the child but also to the parents in the long-term schema.
Hot take
My hot take on Till is this:
Excellent concept. I wish I had this as a teenager. I could have even contributed my paychecks on a bi-weekly basis over having an independent bank account and a funky crusty shoebox with envelopes. Neither of those things taught me financial responsibility, and to this day, I too have my “struggle” moments with impulsive spending or being overly clammy about spending at all.
This by no means should be the only bank account in the family, but I would use something like this to test financial management with someone else before deciding to move in or marry. There are more applications for this than just that of parent-child relationships, and I am excited to see this company thrive in the fintech banking sector.
Please do me a favor, drink some water :)
Editorial credit to Joe Burns.