Novo, the powerfully simple financial platform for small businesses, today announced that the company has brought on Kevin Phillips, former CFO at small business lending company Kabbage, to launch and scale Novo’s lending business.
Today, Novo is also launching Boost, making it the only financial platform that gives small businesses and freelancers same day access to payments received through e-commerce platforms.
Introducing Novo Boost
“While some fintech companies and banks claim to offer instant payouts, we saw that the market is filled with solutions that come with significant fees, or serve well-established corporations instead of the millions of small business owners and freelancers that would benefit most from faster payments,” said Michael Rangel, CEO and co-founder of Novo. “Novo Boost is free, and will be available to all Novo customers that process payments via Stripe — from the growing e-commerce store that employs 10 people to the freelance photographer who uses Stripe for her invoicing.”
Small businesses often struggle to manage their cash flow because of a lack of credit, late customer payments, high fee banking services tailored towards enterprises. The technology behind Boost releases funds into a user’s Novo account shortly after a transaction is approved by the payment processor, as opposed to waiting as long as five days for the funds to be accessible.
To take advantage of Boost, small businesses can create a free checking account at Novo.co, and once approved, integrate with Stripe from within the Novo website or mobile apps. Novo can approve accounts within two days, and customers can set up the Novo integration with Stripe immediately.
Novo plans on launching Boost on additional platforms over the next year.
Announcing Kevin Phillips
“As Novo looks at its next stage of growth, we’re taking the small-business-centric principles that we used to design our award-winning checking account, and creating a financial platform that brings incredible functionality and user friendliness to all aspects of small business finance,” said Rangel. “That’s why we’re thrilled to bring on Kevin Phillips, a true pioneer in the small business lending space who developed one of the world’s most successful lending platforms from the ground up. As EVP of Lending at Novo, Kevin will create lending products that truly put small businesses first.”
Phillips is a world-renowned senior executive with a record of building high-growth start-ups as well as leading large, complex organizations. In 2011, Phillips was one of the first executives to join the Kabbage team, and over a decade built the company into one of the world’s most successful small business lending platforms. During his tenure at Kabbage, Phillips held multiple leadership positions, including CTO, CFO, and Head of Corporate Development. Prior to Kabbage, Phillips held C-level roles at a number of fast-growing technology startups, including CEO of Support Center Technologies and ZapMedia, COO and CFO at Scientific Intake, and CIO at S1. Phillips received his MBA from Georgia State University.
“Virtually every small business fintech company markets themselves as being ‘great’ for their customers, but very few are successful in building out products and services that stay true to their mission,” commented Phillips. “Novo is one of the rare exceptions. The company already has a history of finding innovative, business-friendly ways to improve cash flow, and I look forward to expanding these cashflow-improving efforts in the coming years.”
Phillips joins Novo at a time of significant growth for the company. Novo has surpassed $8 billion in lifetime small business transactions. Over the last year, Novo has also raised more than $130 million from leading fintech investors like Stripes Group and Valar Ventures, and added more than 100,000 new small business customers.