Personal finance app Monarch raises $75 million

Personal Finance startup Monarch raised $75 million to accelerate subscriber growth that developed when budgetary Toolmint was closed last year, CNBC learned.

The funding is one of the biggest US consumer fintech startups this year, valueating the San Francisco-based company at $850 million. The Series B round was led by Forerunner Ventures and FPV Ventures.

Monarch aims to provide an all-in-one mobile app for tracking your spending, investment and money goals. This field was once dominated by Mint, a pioneer in online personal finance, acquired by Intuit in 2009. After years of service declined, Intuit closed it in early 2024.

“Managing your money is one of the big unresolved issues in consumer technology,” Agostino said in a recent Zoom interview. “How American families manage their money is basically the same as in the late ’90s, but today we’re doing it on our mobile phones, rather than stepping into the bank.”

Founded in 2018, Monarch saw a surge in subscriber bases 20 times that year, according to Agostino, after Intuit announced that Mint had been shut down as users sought alternatives.

Unlike Mint, where Mint was free, Monarch relies on subscriber payments, so the company doesn’t have to focus on ads selling credit card issues and users’ data, says Agostino, Mint’s early product manager.

Startup aims to make onboarding accounts and expense tracking easier than rival tools, according to FPV co-founder Wesley Chan.

Chan said Monarch reminded him of previous bets that included stakes in graphic design platform Camba.

“What Val does, that’s the successor to what was done in the financial plan,” Chan said. “It’s frictionless, easy to use and easy to share. It’s something that never existed before, so that’s why he’s growing so fast and has such high engagement numbers.”

The company’s round comes in an era of calm interest for most US fintechs who deal directly with consumers. Monarch is one of the few companies that source a considerable Series B. Other recent examples include Felix, a money transfer service for Latino immigrants.

According to a recent Pitchbook report, fintech companies raised $1.9 billion in venture capital in the first quarter, down 38% from the fourth quarter. About three-quarters of all venture capital collected in the quarter were sent to enterprise fintech space companies, Pitchbook said.

“This sector is still in a nuclear winter,” Chan said, facing a hangover from a startup in 2021, “we’ve raised too much money, we’ve had zero progress and we’ve destroyed it for everyone else.” “That’s fine for me. I love the nuclear winter sector.”