\n<\/p>\n
Flourish Ventures<\/a>, an early-stage venture firm investing exclusively in fintech companies in the U.S. and in emerging markets, has secured $350 million in fresh capital, TechCrunch is the first to report.<\/span><\/p>\n The new raise brings the four-year-old firm\u2019s total assets under management to $850 million.<\/span><\/p>\n Unlike traditional venture outfits, <\/span>Flourish<\/span><\/a> is an evergreen firm, meaning that its investing is open-ended, or has no fixed end date. It has a sole LP in<\/span> the philanthropic investment firm <\/span>Omidyar Network (led by eBay founder <\/span>Pierre Omidyar) \u2014 from which it spun out in 2019. Flourish\u2019s investment thesis is to not only back companies that have the potential to provide a commercial return, but also those it believes can \u201ccreate systemic change\u201d and help \u201cbuild a more fair financial system.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cSince our capital is<\/span> permanent, we are more flexible and not subject to the same pressures of other funds that have to deploy or exit in a certain time frame,\u201d said <\/span>Tilman Ehrbeck, global managing partner<\/span> and co-founder. \u201cWe believe that gives us a comparative advantage.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The firm also aims to back companies that \u201cdemonstrate that either new or better ways of doing business are feasible, and via that successful demonstration, influence the performance of the entire [financial] sector for the better\u2026So we are a fintech venture fund with a purpose,\u201d Ehrbeck said.<\/span><\/p>\n Redwood City, California-based Flourish has backed 71 startups across five continents since its inception with about half of the <\/span>fund\u2019s capital having been deployed in the U.S. <\/span>Notable investments include <\/span>digital bank Chime<\/a>, which was valued at $25 billion in its last funding round; Brazilian neobank Neon<\/a>, which was last priced at $1.6 billion; embedded finance startup Unit, which was last valued at $1.2 billion<\/a>; and African payments infrastructure company Flutterwave, which was last valued at over $3 billion<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIn all of those deals we were either the seed or Series A investor, \u201d noted managing partner and co-founder <\/span>Arjuna Costa.<\/span><\/p>\n Notable exits for the firm include Grab Financial going public via SPAC, Ruma selling to GoJek, SeedFi being sold to Intuit and United Income sold to Capital One.<\/span><\/p>\n As part of its mission to create systemic change, Flourish partners with <\/span>policymakers, regulators, industry leaders and ecosystem players such as Alliance for Innovative Regulation (AIR), Financial Health Network (FHN) and Consumer Reports.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Flourish\u2019s managing partners and founders (and their regions of focus) include <\/span>Ehrbeck <\/span>(India and Southeast Asia), Emmalyn Shaw (U.S.) and Costa (emerging markets such as Latin America and Africa).<\/span><\/p>\n A portion of the firm\u2019s new capital will be reserved for some follow-on investing, Shaw said. On average, Flourish\u2019s first checks into a company range from $2 million to $7 million and it makes about six to 10 new investments a year.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe can go smaller or flex up,\u201d she told TechCrunch. \u201cWe try to lead or co-lead investments when appropriate, and take active board roles.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Looking ahead, Shaw said that Flourish continues to lead into infrastructure and is seeking to back \u201cnext-gen\u201d companies in the B2B payments and vertical SaaS spaces that are \u201cembedding finance more deeply in the stack.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe are also continuing to look very deeply at the transformation of poor legacy infrastructure,\u201d she said. \u201cWe know that\u2019s a really difficult problem and deeply entrenched, but it\u2019s one that we really believe to have massive system level change.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The firm is also looking at data analytics across banking, insurance payments and lending identity.<\/span><\/p>\n Flourish also claims to tout a \u201cdiverse\u201d team that is majority female and non-white.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe are trying to be equally deliberate on the investment side,\u201d Ehrbeck said, although he acknowledged that it\u2019s difficult to define diversity when you\u2019re talking about startups from different parts of the world, because what might be considered diverse in one country would not in another.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIn the U.S. there are a certain set of considerations, whereas in India, it has much more do with caste and backgrounds, for example,\u201d he added.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As one data point, though, Shaw points out that in the firm\u2019s last four new deals, all have female co-founders.<\/span><\/p>\n In the context of the broader investing landscape, the capital raise is no doubt good news for fintech startups, which have <\/span>raised far less capital in recent quarters<\/span><\/a> compared to the heyday of 2020 and 2021.<\/span><\/p>\n Want more fintech news in your inbox? Sign up for The Interchange <\/span><\/i>here<\/span><\/i><\/a>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nStrategy<\/strong><\/h2>\n