Quild #52: Pinwheel
Income layer for financial services
This is the Quild daily, highlighting one early-stage startup that has statistically significant signals of becoming a unicorn.
Pinwheel is working to create a fairer financial system by unlocking API access to payroll systems. Pinwheel provides a platform allowing consumers to connect their payroll account to any app. By building pipes that connect these systems to banks, lenders, and other service providers, Pinwheel helps underserved consumers gain equitable access to today’s financial products when they need them the most.
Full-time Founders: Anish (CTO), Kurt (CEO). Curtis is also a co-founder but is now chairman
Signals:
Venture-backed experience
Anish was a principal software engineer at Zynga (NASDAQ:ZNGA)
Kurt was the general manager for Lux (raised from Venrock), which Volvo acquired
Top company alumni
Anish worked as an engineer at CBS, Viacom, and Google for 4 years
Kurt was a wealth manager for UBS for 1 year
Top university alumni
Anish graduated from Rutgers University (BS)
Kurt graduated from UCLA (BS)
Fast team growth
Grew 2.6x YoY to 82 employees
Accelerated financing
Seed announced in Jun 2020, series A in Jun 2021, series B in Jan 2022
Midas list investors
GGV capital led series B
Coatue led series A
Till tomorrow, Kenn