Financial Management Chatbot Plum Raises $4.5M

Plum, a FinTech chatbot app created to help people manage money, has raised $4.5 million in a funding round, reaching a total of $6.3 million, according to a report by TechCrunch.

The round was led by VentureFriends and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Plum, which is described as an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven money management tool, has offices in London and Athens.

The company was founded in 2016 by Alex Michael and former TransferWise employee Victor Trokoudes.

The company has similarities to rivals Cleo and Chip, in that it links to a person’s bank account and has access to financial information. It also has a wide range of saving, investment and analysis tools based on personal spending habits.

Plum has an algorithm that lets people know what they can afford to spend and how much they need to save, as well as other budgeting aids. It will also help open an ISA investment account and also has a feature to let people invest in something based on a theme, like “Nutrition” or “Emerging Markets.”

The money management firm also recently debuted a feature called “splitter,” where people can divide savings between accounts and investments, and select a percentage to go into each.

“Contributing a regular percentage can help to build up your investments consistently and avoid getting tempted to put more in when funds are doing well and less when funds are down,” the company said in a blog post. “This is important because when funds are down and you invest, you acquire far more stocks for the same amount invested. This means if funds come back up again, your returns are far greater than if you had invested when the funds were already up (and visa versa).”

Also, if the app thinks someone is overpaying on a bill, it will help switch to a different company. The chatbot will be available for the launch of Plum on iOs, and an Android app is coming soon, the company said.