Onward, the financial platform for co-parents, announced today it has raised $9.7 million in Series A funding led by TTV Capital with participation from Lerer Hippeau, Citi Ventures, Correlation Ventures, and Gingerbread Capital. The funding comes on the heels of significant growth for the company, which is the only fintech app designed to serve the needs of divorced and separated parents. Onward has gained significant momentum with nearly 100,000 installs from those seeking relief from the tense, unclear, and often disorganized methods of managing money with their co-parent. The new funding will support growing the team and expanding its portfolio of innovative fintech products.
Onward’s mission is laser focused on improving the lives of co-parents and creating happier homes for the next generation. Today, the roughly 50 million co-parents in the U.S. rely on messy text messages and emailed spreadsheets to keep track of shared expenses for their children, often leading to unnecessary arguments. The vast majority of these co-parents have no child support agreement in place, meaning that every expense is up for negotiation. Even for those who have a child support agreement, child support doesn’t cover medical bills, extracurricular activities, and more, so they still end up going back and forth with their co-parent multiple times each month. Onward significantly reduces friction in communication for these co-parents and makes it easier to see who owes whom and pay each other back. The app also keeps a record of all expense history for children, pets, and other shared expenses, which can be exported at any time.
The fundraise signals Onward’s hold on this particular market which continues to grow and demand tailored fintech tools for its highly specific and often emotionally-laden needs. It also comes in the midst of an exciting growth period for the company as it rapidly gains new customers and adds new members to the team, welcoming top talent from fintech companies including PayPal, Stash, Acorns, and Intuit. It will use the funds from its Series A to continue expanding the team, test new acquisition channels, and gear up for a major product launch.
“Money is the number one cause of arguments for co-parents, even in the most amicable relationships. Seeing my own parents get divorced when I was 14 gave me an intimate understanding of the difficulties that parents and their children face when it comes to difficult conversations about money,” said Jacklyn Adele Rome, CEO and founder of Onward. “We’re very excited and grateful to continue to have the support of our investors as we aim to address a significant and unaddressed need for millions of co-parents across this country. We’re determined to continue to build products that reduce friction in their lives and deliver social impact by enabling them to be better parents to the next generation.”
Beyond its financial products, Onward is also building a strong and uplifting consumer brand to empower co-parents in their next stage of life. Despite the fact that nearly half of all marriages end in divorce, there tends to still be a societal and cultural stigma around it. Onward is looking to reframe that narrative, normalize co-parenting, and build a community that helps co-parents feel optimistic about the future.
“We always look for three things when deciding to make an investment: founder, vision, and opportunity. Onward checks all of those boxes and more,” said Mark Johnson, Partner at TTV Capital. “Jacklyn and her team have dug into the co-parenting experience to design an intuitive product. We’re confident that this infusion of new capital will enable Onward to build even more solutions that benefit co-parents everywhere.”
“Jacklyn and the Onward team stood out to us in their early work with Citi Ventures because we saw how the company was tackling a massive gap in the market head-on with thoughtful, human-centric financial services,” said Luis Valdich, Managing Director of Venture Investing at Citi Ventures. “We’re excited to continue supporting Onward’s growth trajectory as it enables co-parents to streamline financial discussions and focus on what matters most: their families.”
“We’ve been glad to support Onward from the beginning as they build a first-of-its-kind financial product for co-parents,” said Caitlin Strandberg, Partner at Lerer Hippeau. “There is a huge opportunity in this market, and Jacklyn and the team are just getting started.”
Onward was founded in 2020 by CEO and serial entrepreneur Jacklyn Rome following her stints leading innovative new product launches at Uber and Blue Apron. The company was founded while Jacklyn was an Entrepreneur in Residence at Co-Created, a venture studio based in New York, with support and funding from Citi Ventures.About Onward
Onward is a fintech platform designed to help co-parents manage shared finances for their children more easily. The app solves an acute pain point for co-parents who primarily send text messages or spreadsheets back and forth to track expenses for their children, pets, and other shared expenses. With Onward, co-parents can streamline the often tense communication about shared finances to enable themselves and their families to thrive. Onward is based in Los Angeles, California. For more information, visit https://www.onwardapp.com, download the app on the App Store or Google Play, or follow Onward on LinkedIn.
SOURCE Onward