Los Angeles-based Rain raised a $75M Series B in another good sign for fintech

Summary

Rain, a startup offering employer-integrated earned wage access (EWA) app coupled with financial-wellness features like overdraft alerts and spending trends, has raised $75 million in an all-equity Series B round. The round was led by Prosus at a post-money valuation of $340 million. Rain plans to use the new funds to help it add credit card and saving products to its roster, co-founder CEO Alex Bradford, exclusively tells TechCrunch. Around 35% of households in the U.S. with an annual income below $50,000 are living paycheck to paycheck, up from 32% in 2019, per a report (PDF) by Bank of America published in October. Paycheck-to-paycheck populations rise with age and can be anywhere in the U.S., though this report indicates they are highest in the South. Biweekly paychecks can be hard to wait for when bills are due any day of the month. EWA platforms allow employees to get a portion of their paychecks early with a small fee and can be less predatory than other get-cash-now methods, like high-interest payday loans. Rain aims to differentiate its presence and attract employers who want to help employees access earned wages between their paychecks with automation. “Because we are connected to all the major payroll and timekeeping systems, and we built automated tooling that makes it super easy for us to onboard employers, there is very minimal manual work for employers through onboarding, and once we go live, there is hardly any work day-to-day or pay period-to-pay period for them,” said Bradford. The Los Angeles-based startup, founded in 2019, has onboarded over 2.5 million employees and distributed over $2 billion in earned wages, it says. The Rain app says it helps employers retain employees, too. Image Credits:Rain Rain targets mid-market and enterprise customers with over 300 employees. It charges a fee equivalent to an ATM fee, an average of around $3 per transaction, for an instant transaction. However, employees can also use the free ACH option, which credits ...