Fintech Spriggy banks $35 million series B led by NAB Ventures

Finance-for-kids fintech Spriggy has raised a $35 million Series B round led by NAB Ventures.

Perennial Value Management also invested, with previous backer, Grok Ventures, the family investment vehicle of Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes and his wife, Annie, also topping up the piggy bank.

Grok led the $12 million Series A round in 2019 as well as being part of the initial seed funding. CEO Jeremy Kwong-Law said Spriggy is “brilliant at understanding customer pain points around family money management”.

NAB Ventures executive Todd Forest will join Spriggy’s board. Previous backers include Perle Ventures, Alium Capital and H2 Ventures.

The series B will fund the pocket money app’s plans, which includes tripling the team over the next 12 months.

Sprigg’s pocket money app also includes a prepaid card for spending.

Spriggy was founded by former Citibank derivatives traders Alex Badran and Mario Hasanakos in 2015 with $300,000 in seed funding before launching in 2016.

The app includes a prepaid card for kids. Parents pay $30 a year per child to use it.

Hasanakos said Spriggy’s goal is to create safe and simple way for young people to learn healthy money habits through real world experience.

“With more than 500,000 parents and kids having joined Spriggy and more than 3% of Australian families using Spriggy every month, we are inspired every day by how much Aussie families care about the financial future of their kids,” he said.

His co-founder and co-CEO Alex Badran said the future of financial services will be deeply personal.

“Products are being re-bundled around the experiences and relationships that matter to everyday people,” he said.

“The parent-child relationship is the most important relationship there is. Spriggy has been built from the ground up to serve that relationship.”

NAB’s group executive, personal banking, Rachel Slade, said the bank will work with the fintech to reach more families with financial education experiences.

“NAB continues to invest in innovation, making products simpler and more digital for all our customers. We want our customers to have the best banking experience possible and are building partnerships with leading companies to support this,” she said

“We know how much parents love the Spriggy app and the financial confidence it builds in their children. We are looking forward to working with Spriggy to develop new features that help families further build that confidence.”

Perennial’s Andrew Smith said Spriggy cards and the family app are very popular in his household.

“It has been great to see firsthand the excellent user experience and more importantly seeing my kids learn some valuable lessons and healthy habits when it comes to managing money,” he said.