Greenwood, a US-based digital banking platform for black and Latino individuals and business owners, has raised $40m in its series A round from a handful of local banks and led by Truist Ventures, the corporate venture capital division of New York-listed Truist Financial.
The other banks included Bank of America, PNC, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Popular, the largest Hispanic-owned bank in the US. The strategic group is joined by FIS, a provider of technology solutions for merchants, banks and capital markets firms, and the top two payment technology companies, Mastercard and Visa.
Other investors included venture capital firms TTV Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners (Scout Fund), Japan-listed conglomerate SoftBank Group’s SB Opportunity Fund, Quality Ventures, the private equity arm of sports media conglomerate Quality Control, and angel investor Alvin Kamara.
Dontá Wilson, Truist chief digital and client experience officer who oversees Truist Ventures, said: “In addition to the opportunity to work with and learn from this distinguished group of founders, our investment in Greenwood is reflective of our purpose and commitment to advancing economic empowerment of minority and underserved communities.”
Shu Nyatta, managing partner of SoftBank’s Opportunity Fund, added: “Galvanizing a broad coalition of consumers and companies to close the racial equity gap is very closely aligned with our mission at the Opportunity Fund.”
Greenwood was announced in October 2020 and already has signed up more than 500,000 users.
