Unit has raised $18.6 million in a funding round to go toward the startup's goal of providing a way for third parties to integrate banking services through an application programming interface (API), according to a report from TechCrunch.
Unit's services encompass features like payment cards, checking accounts, cash advances and money transfers, letting companies integrate them into their own businesses, the report stated. The $18.6 million will go toward continuing to add features, hire more employees and grow the company's user base.
CEO and Co-Founder Itai Damti said per TechCrunch that the company's goal is to make it simpler for companies already doing some transacting work with customers, such as an on-demand transportation company interacting with a fleet of drivers or a bookkeeping platform providing online service.
Damti's idea is to expand those types of relationships into more comprehensive, loyal ones with a wider array of financial features, betting that there would be a market for banking services for places where people are already doing work.
“Companies in the freelancer economy are in the great position to bundle more banking services into their platforms for freelancers,” Damti said, according to TechCrunch, adding that companies will be able to use Unit to help freelancers track spending and let companies send payments to freelancers.
There are still major swathes of the population that are underbanked, and bank branch closures appear to be speeding up, PYMNTS reported. The lack of a bank presence often forces some consumers to use expensive services for money transfers or check cashing.
Those kinds of banking deserts, according to Michael Coghlan, CEO of banking technology provider Verdigris Holdings, can often be expensive for both consumers and businesses. Innovation, he said, will come from combining modernization for institutions with operational support. The most successful transformations will involve the end user, including small businesses that have had to use cumbersome or expensive products before.
