UK-Based Flexible-Pay Platform Wagestream Raises $175M in Series C Round

Wagestream, the flexible pay and financial well-being app, has closed a Series C funding round for $175 million, a report said.

This comes as the company prepares to scale up for the undeserved, financially stressed workers in the U.S.

The capital will mostly be used to expand Wagestream’s presence in the U.S., which is the quickest growing market for the company.

Frontline workers have often been excluded from financial services, or forced to pay more, in contrast to those who make a set salary or higher wages. Wagestream, founded in 2018, wanted to address that problem by giving access to fairer financial services delivered through the employer.

“When we launched Wagestream, many employers viewed financial well-being in the workplace as a long-term aspiration; now they realize it is a national emergency,” said Peter Briffett, Wagestream CEO and co-founder. “For example, 93% of companies we recently surveyed in the United Kingdom plan to put a financial well-being program in place, and we’re seeing a similar shift in the U.S. By addressing the financial well-being of their employees, employers become the hero and solve their own HR challenges in the process – from recruitment, to retention, to productivity.”

This round is likely the biggest ever raised for a social impact FinTech, and the release said it comes with $60 million equity investment from new investors Smash Capital, along with funds and accounts from BlackRock and $115 million from Silicon Valley Bank, which works in debt financing.

See also: Wagestream Inks Visa Deal To Expand Offerings In Europe

PYMNTS wrote that in 2020, Wagestream made a deal to team with Visa to boost its European offerings.

That came after Wagestream got a big injection of capital at that time too. The company announced it would be integrating Visa Direct’s push payments platform into its income streaming system. That would let workers draw upon the percentage of their paycheck as they earned it.