FinTech News
Splitwise Announces $20 Million Funding Round
One universal pain point that’s long plagued such activities as dining out or traveling with friends is splitting the expenses. Despite there now being several tools consumers can use to quickly pay back their loved ones, asking for those funds can still be an awkward experience. Now, the startup Splitwise has earned an investment to help grow its platform that seeks to assist with this interpersonal finance issue.
This week, the Rhode Island-based FinTech announced that it had raised $20 million in its latest funding round. The Series A was led by Insight Partners, with Insight principal Boris Treskunov joining Splitwise’s Board of Directors as a result of the deal. To date, the startup has now raised more than $30 million.
Splitwise is a tool meant to make it easier for roommates, couples, and friends to easily split shared expenses. Users can track outstanding balances and organize payments in the app, however payments aren’t actually made through the platform. Instead, the app is meant to serve more as a shared ledger that parties can use to ensure they’re on the same page when it comes to expense. While the core Splitwise product is free to use, the company also offers a Splitwise Pro upgrade that comes at a cost of $2.99 a month or $29.99 a year. This premium offering adds such features as receipt scanning, currency conversion, and more while also removing ads from the app.
In their press release, Splitwise noted that their platform saw a significant increase in users splitting household costs but, now with travel getting ready for a return, they anticipate that group travelers will further propel the use of their service. As Splitwise co-founder and CEO Jon Bittner explained, “Amid COVID-19, Splitwise was more important than ever for people who live together, allowing them to share costs of daily essentials when they were hard to come by. I’m even more excited about the year ahead as the world reopens to travelers, who will also benefit massively from sharing expenses with Splitwise.”
Elsewhere, speaking to why his company chose to invest in Splitwise, Insight Partners principal (and new Splitwise board member)Boris Treskunov said, “We are thrilled to partner with Splitwise during this next phase of growth. Thanks to its excellent product, breadth of use cases, and word-of-mouth familiarity, Splitwise is well positioned to expand its position as the leading interpersonal finance app for family and friends to effortlessly share expenses.”
With an eight-figure investing round banked, Splitwise now has a lot of runway to help it climb in conjunction with the shared travel market it’s hoping to capitalize on. While that funding will certainly go a long way to helping with that, one potential challenge it could face is confusion among those who might assume it’s simply trying to be a replacement for the likes of Venmo and PayPal instead of seeing it as an additional tool. But, with any luck, Splitwise will be able to communicate that message, grow its userbase, and help solve an age-old problem in the process.
