Canada's NorthOne has raised $2 million in seed funding to build a mobile-first, API-enabled banking platform for startups and small businesses.
Investors Peter Graham, Tom Williams, and Ferst Capital Partners participated in the round, backing NorthOne's "mission...to eliminate the devastating impact that poor financial literacy and financial management has on small business failure rates and costs".
The NorthOne app and API-enabled bank account promises to connect to all the financial management tools businesses already use and gives them clarity on their finances in real time while automating the most time-consuming money management tasks.
The startup, which is working with a licensed bank for its service, claims to have already seen 4000 businesses request an account ahead of launch later this year.
In the meantime, it has been testing a prototype with a small number of beta users and has also built and released free tools to help SMBs with challenges such as incorporation, finding the best bank account and understanding financial basics.
The new money will be used to triple the team from five members to 15 to ensure that the app and platform are ready to launch by the end of 2018.
Eytan Bensoussan, co-founder and CEO, NorthOne, says: "Our team is focused on creating a banking experience that is designed to save entrepreneurs money, time and stress. We’re talking about hundreds of dollars in savings each month.”