FJ Labs

Homeownership is the most expensive it’s been in a generation with consumers spending over one third of their income on their home. As a country, Americans spend over $6T annually on homeownership — more than defense, social security, and healthcare combined. It’s no longer just a housing problem - it’s a home cost crisis. That hurts a lot of people and their finances. It hurts all of us too, because homeownership is essential to the economy and to our communities. Other businesses vie for your loyalty by giving you something back. Buy a lot of coffee at Starbucks, get one for free. Fly Delta enough, get an upgrade. Book a hotel with Marriott, earn points to spend. But the one thing you spend the most on – your home and all that comes with it? No one rewards that. But that’s about to change. Today, we’re excited to announce Mesa: the first homeowner membership platform. The Mesa Homeowner Membership platform gives value back for every dollar members spend on their home. Our first products are the Mesa Mortgage Marketplace and the Mesa Homeowners Card. Mesa rewards points can be redeemed at partner brands, used to book travel, or reinvested back into your home by paying down your outstanding mortgage balance or applying Mesa points towards a down payment. Mesa has brought together some of the largest and most innovative companies in the world to help solve the home cost crisis. Our strategic partners like Visa help power our mission as part of the Mesa Homeowners Network?. Our team brings decades of experience from world class companies like Uber, Robinhood, Block, Bilt Rewards, Capital One, and American Express. This includes leaders like Shannon Cusick, our Head of Partnerships who led business development at Peloton and American Express, Tina Moore, our GM of Card & Rewards who was on the founding team at Bilt Rewards, and CFO Nadia Asoyan, the first finance hire at Robinhood. To build on our momentum, we’ve raised a $9.2M round of financing to grow our team, expand our membership offerings, and add more brand and financial partners to the Mesa Homeowners Network. The $7.2 million seed funding was led by Streamlined Ventures, with Starting Line, Assurant Ventures, Vera Equity, RWT Horizons, Clocktower Ventures, Red Sea Ventures, FJ Labs, WISE Ventures, LLC, and several other firms joining. Executives from companies like Ramp, Robinhood, Opendoor, and Alloy also invested. We received an additional $2 million in venture debt from Silicon Valley Bank, a division of First Citizens Bank. At Mesa, we’re on a mission to make homeownership more affordable and rewarding. If that’s something you believe in, please reach out.

?? I am so excited to announce that Momos has raised $10 million for its Series A, bringing our total funding to $17 million! ?? This is a huge milestone for us, and I can’t thank our team, our customers, partners, friends and family enough. It’s been an incredible 3.5 years at Momos for Andrew Liu and I, and the best is yet to come.? A big thanks to Nnamdi Okike and Mendy Yang and the team at 645 Ventures who led our round. They’re big believers in what we’re doing at Momos and we couldn’t think of better partners to work with. Also a big shout out to Jacob Singh from Alpha Wave and Aakash Kapoor from Peak XV Partners for the continued support, and we also welcome new investors Soma Capital, FJ Labs, Taurus Ventures, and Correlation Ventures. It has been an amazing learning experience to go from a concept, MVP, and first paying customer, to now working with over 5,000 businesses globally, including household brands like Shake Shack, Baskin Robbins, L&L Hawaiian BBQ and many more. We’re most proud of the fact that over 90% of our partners use us every single day and they absolutely love the platform. We grew 4x last year and now have customers across 10 countries. The US is our largest and fastest growing market, and we’re excited to become the AI Customer Platform for multi-location brands everywhere. Now that I have moved back to the US, I am also able to spend more time with our customers who make us sharper everyday. Last but not least, an immense thanks to the 50+ teammates that work at Momos. We’re dual-headquartered in San Diego and Singapore, but our teammates across our global offices are the driving force behind Momos. The real Momos differentiation is that we’re obsessed with our customers and are able to rapidly build world class products to solve their largest problems; our partners are incredibly busy running their businesses and we make managing all of their customers across locations and channels easier. With this new funding, we’re doubling down on growing our engineering and sales teams everywhere. Please reach out to me and Andrew if you’re interested, or know anyone that is! We’re building the next-gen customer platform for brick and mortar businesses, but we know we can’t do it alone! Read more about the announcement here: https://lnkd.in/geScs5fv

Thrilled to announce Howbout’s $8million Series A investment round led by Goodwater, which also includes FJ Labs, sequel, England footballer Harry Maguire, and existing investors Boost Capital Partners & Angel Invest. Delighted to also welcome Goodwater Managing Partner Chi-Hua Chien, who backed Facebook, Spotify & Monzo, to our Board. Our mission is to redefine an entire generation’s relationship with time - building the place for Gen Z to share their most authentic selves through how they spend their time. To date, 50 million events have been added to Howbout calendars by users in over 100 countries. A company is absolutely nothing without its people. To our incredible team, this milestone was only reached because of the meticulous focus on our vision that we work towards every day. To our earliest investors & advisors who backed us when we only had a vision, hustle and early data to show, thank you for your belief. You saw something in us many others overlooked. A special mention to Claire, Amir, Sameer, Phoebe, Oli, Gina, Pablo, Alvaro, Jag, John, Sam, Jamie, Suraj, Ravi, andrew, Mark, Andrei, James, James, Darragh, Salim, Nigel, Simon, Laura, Max, Thomas, Maximilian, John, Torbj?rn, Desigan and Graham. TechCrunch article in the comments - thanks Ivan for the write up. Right, that’s enough on this. Time to roll up our sleeves. Mum, this one’s for you.

I’m thrilled to announce that Ziina ???? has raised $22 million in Series A, led by Altos Ventures From day one, our goal has been to bring financial freedom to every person in the Middle East. When we started Ziina, it was about more than just creating another fintech company. It was about deeply understanding and addressing the financial challenges individuals and businesses face daily. Our journey began with a commitment to ease these pressures and transform how people interact with their money. Today, we’re proud to share this significant milestone in that journey. Over the years, users have told us that they need a financial partner who makes managing money easier and helps them grow. With this raise, we’re now equipped to expand our services, offering more powerful tools that cater to the diverse needs of our community at every step of their journey. We are proud to work with an incredible team, drawing top-tier talent from companies like Apple, Uber, Nubank, Revolut, Klarna, Coinbase, Amazon, FundingCircle, Yandex, and more. We are excited to welcome even more fintech enthusiasts who share our vision for innovation and excellence. Thank you to our investors for supporting our vision, and to every customer who has been a part of our journey. Together, we’re not just simplifying transactions; we’re creating an ecosystem that redefines the financial landscape in the region. Here’s to breaking new ground and redefining how money moves in the UAE and the Middle East ??

I'm very excited to announce that Comun has raised a $21.5M Series A led by Redpoint and joined by Costanoa Ventures, ANIMO Ventures, RTP Global, South Park Commons, and FJ Labs! ?? This milestone is a testament to our incredible team's hard work and dedication and the trust our customers place in us every day. When Abiel Gutierrez and I founded Comun, we set out with a mission to empower immigrants and their families to turn their hard work into upward mobility. As immigrants ourselves, we know how making financial services more accessible, affordable, and tailored is crucial to achieving this. Since launching, our active customer base has grown by 52% month-over-month, with revenue per user almost quadrupling in the past year. We've surpassed $1B in annualized payment volume, and our new international remittances product has quickly grown to a formidable size. But we're just getting started. With this new investment, we'll be doubling down on our efforts to be the one-stop financial partner for our customers. We're expanding our team, enhancing our product offerings, and continuing to fight for a future where everyone has access to the financial services they need to thrive. A huge thank you to all our investors for continuing to double down on our journey, our team for their relentless dedication, and our customers for inspiring us every day. The journey is far from over, and we can't wait to share what's next. Special thanks to Mary Ann Azevedo at TechCrunch for helping us share our story!

The Rounds announces a $24M Series B to accelerate improvements to our service, strategically focus growth on existing market profitability, and make big steps towards building the go-to platform for effortlessly managing your everyday essentials in a more sustainable way than the alternative. This new round of funding was led by Moderne Ventures, with additional new investors, including FJ Labs, and existing investors doubling down, like Construct Capital, Redpoint, First Round Capital and Red & Blue Ventures, and brings our total funding to date to $66M. We are hiring for select roles, including applied machine learning and data science. If you’re interested please apply at https://lnkd.in/eDCrnrhh Thanks to Lauren Forristal and TechCrunch for speaking with our Co-Founder & CEO, Alexander Torrey.

The Rounds announces a $24M Series B to accelerate improvements to our service, strategically focus growth on existing market profitability, and make big steps towards building the go-to platform for effortlessly managing your everyday essentials in a more sustainable way than the alternative. This new round of funding was led by Moderne Ventures, with additional new investors, including FJ Labs, and existing investors doubling down, like Construct Capital, Redpoint, First Round Capital and Red & Blue Ventures, and brings our total funding to date to $66M. We are hiring for select roles, including applied machine learning and data science. If you’re interested please apply at https://lnkd.in/eDCrnrhh Thanks to Lauren Forristal and TechCrunch for speaking with our Co-Founder & CEO, Alexander Torrey.

Today is an extremely exciting day, and one that marks a new chapter at Cents. I'm thrilled to share that we are announcing our $40 million Series B funding round. This takes our total company funding to $77 million! Being a part of the laundry industry has been one of the most incredible privileges of my life. Since launching Cents with Gilli, it's been a dream come true for us to have the ability to work with so many passionate SMB operators and to see our products powering over 1 in every 14 laundromats in the USA! While I'm immensely proud of the work we've done so far, our team knows that this journey has just begun. I also want to share a HUGE shoutout and thank you to our team of incredible investors and advisors. Gilli and I are beyond grateful for your trust and belief in the opportunity we have in our industry. Kent Bennett and Bessemer Venture Partners, Alexandra Nicoletti and Camber Creek, Vincent Monti and Tiger Global Management, John Curtius, Pramod Dabir, Chase Gilbert, Jason T. Ordway, Matthew Tucker, Kenny Herman William Gaybrick, Sam Pillar, Jonathan Vassil, Steve Fredette, Spencer Krug and RiverPark Ventures, Rosecliff, Tyler Carrico and Derive Ventures, Matias Barbero and FJ Labs Henri Deshays and Newfund, Oded Hermoni and J-Ventures Fund, Danielle Strachman Michael Patrick Gibson and 1517 Fund, Matthew Schneider and Ali Hawkins Pfitzenmaier, Matt Boras and RXR RADV, Jason Guss, Alumni Ventures, Michael Mann, Jeb Boucher, and SO many more. https://lnkd.in/eWmEcSuW For the full press release: https://lnkd.in/eUMcefXt #smbtech #laundry #fundraise #saas #verticalsaas

Congratulation to Passionfruit that has closed a $9m USD Series A funding round to scale their platform for independent work! Total funds (incl. Seed round) raised now stand at $13.3m. The investment round has been led by Seaya with participation from all major Seed investors (firstminute Capital, Playfair Capital, Cornerstone, FJ Labs and Portfolio Ventures)

Today, we’re announcing a $65M strategic round in equity and debt from J.P. Morgan, Notable Capital and others, bringing our total funding to $252M! We believe our long-term thinking and emphasis on both “fin” and “tech” has been imperative to execute precisely above the chaos, close major partnerships, and onboard new customers. While we are very “tech” – pushing boundaries in AI and shipping velocity, headquartered in San Francisco, and backed by the best technologists in Silicon Valley (Sam Altman, Y Combinator, founders of OpenAI, DoorDash, Plaid, Dropbox, Unity, etc.) – partnering deeply with the largest bank in the world, J.P. Morgan, to gain expertise in compliance, risk, and distribution is a necessity to transition the $125T B2B economy online. By combining J.P. Morgan’s fortress balance sheet and depth of client relationships with Slope’s strengths in technology, underwriting and credit risk monitoring – we are a well-positioned partner to serve the world’s largest enterprises. We are hitting an exciting inflection point and hiring across all roles! If you or someone you know are interested in joining us, check out our roles here: https://lnkd.in/dx5wS3_i Announcement on X: https://lnkd.in/deJu3gra Note from our CEO: https://lnkd.in/dYCe59ur TechCrunch coverage: https://lnkd.in/gjduHbwQ Press release: https://lnkd.in/dmtWxR76