Financial services holding group Power Financial Corporation made an $8m strategic investment in Canada-based financial services app developer Koho yesterday through its venture capital vehicle, Portag3 Ventures.
Koho offers users a mobile app with a spending account and a prepaid Visa card, which customers can use for day-to-day spending and for transactions such as money transfers, bill payment and ATM withdrawals.
The app also provides real-time updates, automated budgets, personalised goals and card blocking to help users better manage their finances. The investment will enable Koho to grow its technology platform and its engineering and operations team.
Koho had raised $2.6m from investors including Power Financial Corporation as of March this year when it launched its platform, according to TechCrunch, $1m of which came from Ferst Capital, Hedgewood, Highline, Stanley Park Ventures and various angel investors in May 2015.
Daniel Eberhard, Koho’s founder and chief executive, told the National Post: “This is really kind of the scale-up round.
“And so, with this we take what is effectively a proof-of-concept, it is working, it is growing pretty quickly, and really get to add a lot of fuel to the fire in terms of expanding the team and certainly a bigger push towards marketing and top-line growth.”