Klutch 💳

Setting the Scene

• Your wallet is bursting with credit cards, and your phone is cluttered with finance apps.

  • Each card serves a specific purpose, whether it’s for travel, shopping, or scoring 6% cash back on avocado toast. 🥑

  • You have finance apps for budgeting, tracking subscriptions, and receiving discounts at local stores. 🛍

• The chaos in your wallet and on your phone makes you struggle to manage payments and stay organized.

• This week’s company consolidates and personalizes finances through a tech-driven credit card.

In a Sentence

Klutch is a credit card that enables users to customize its features.

• Customize: Consumers and businesses select financial tools and rewards from an app store or build their own apps.

• Features: Cardholders can choose from single-use cards, parental controls, budgeting tools, payment automation, and more.

The Basics

• Industry: Fintech, credit cards, digital banking

• Headquarters: San Francisco, CA

• Year founded: 2019

• Employee count: 3

• Investors: Lakehouse Ventures, Plug and Play Ventures, 500 Startups, angels

• Amount raised: $1m

• Currently raising: $3m

• Business model: Interchange, interest, subscription for premium apps, b2b partnerships

• Early traction: Over 10,000 user sign-ups, $550k in total transaction volume, strong organic growth, users opening the app 11x per week, 0 defaults

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH

• If the hard part is getting started, this will send you sailing.

• HubSpot’s Business Startup Kit has nine nimble templates that will help you brainstorm, blueprint, and build.

• It includes foundational docs for colleagues (business and marketing planning templates) plus assets for potential backers (pitch decks, tech stack-checklist, cost calculator, and more).

• It’s yours – for free. Download it here. 

Due Diligence

WHAT WE LIKE

• 📈 All-in-one: Klutch aligns with consumer demands in the evolving credit card industry by combining the convenience and security of digital banking with tailored financial tools and rewards.

  • Plus, the company allows programmers and companies to build MiniApps to meet their specific needs.

• 💸 Revenue streams: Beyond interchange and interest, the company brings in reliable revenue and builds cash reserves by offering premium MiniApp subscriptions.

• 👤 The everybody card: Klutch’s personalized credit cards cater to various use cases and needs, enabling the company to attract broad consumer and corporate end markets.

POTENTIAL RISKS

• 💰 Extending credit: Klutch must maintain sufficient capital reserves to offer credit to a growing user base, cover potential defaults, and comply with regulatory requirements.

• 🏦 Credit card competition: The company may struggle to take users from well-established financial institutions with significant resources, brand recognition, and consumer trust.

• ✏️ Learning curve: Klutch must invest in customer education, support, and engagement to ensure users keep up with new features and leverage the card’s full potential.

Founder Profile

• Renato Steinberg, CEO: Previously founded Saferize and Fashion.me (acquired by Coquelux) and served as the first employee and CTO at Bento (acquired by US Bank).

• Rachel Ehrlich, COO: Previously led global transactions at Knotel and BD at TD.

Comps

• X1: Backed by Soma Capital, Spark Capital, Craft Ventures, and others.

• Privacy.com: Owned by Lithic and backed by Bessemer, Index Ventures, Exor, and others.

• Fidel API: Backed by Bain Capital Ventures, NYCA Partners, QED Investors, and more.

• Fuze: Raised through crowdfunding.

📌 Bulletin Board

• 💥 Newchip, no more: Newchip, a startup accelerator known for its equity-free program, was forced into Chapter 7 bankruptcy after failing to pay off $4 million in debt.

• 🐦 Twitter’s next CEO: Musk hired Linda Yaccarino, NBCUniversal’s former advertising chief, to replace him as Twitter’s CEO.

• 🍿 Keeping up with past companies: Finch, a provider of sustainable shopping guides and data, raised a seed round led by Oxcart Ventures.

🗳 Cast Your Vote

Last Week Today

• The results are in: Voters were split on Aro, a device and app to help users manage screen time.

• Subscriber feedback: “Better concept than anything I've seen.

  My concern comes with companies looking to copy this idea…as it seems easy to duplicate.”

✍️ Written by Brett and Sam

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