Nearside (formerly Hatch), a fintech offering checking accounts and rewards programs to small- and medium-sized businesses, announced raising a $58 million Series B led by Valar Ventures, according to a press release.
The company says it will use the funding to expand its service portfolio through the launch of its Term Loan and Sprout products in 2022, with the two set to enable customers to easily incorporate their businesses within the Nearside dashboard.
Kleiner Perkins, Foundation Capital, Jim Breyer of Breyer Capital, Michael Ovitz (Founder of CAA), Kevin Hartz (Founder of Eventbrite) and Ryan Petersen (Founder of Flexport) also participated in the round. Nearside has now raised $78 million, following a $20 million Series A in April, according to the release.
Nearside currently provides business checking accounts with no monthly, overdraft or ATM fees, as well as a 1% universal cashback rewards program.
It is the first in the SMB online banking space to offer such a program, according to the release, and it also recently launched a Premium Cashback Rewards program that offers up to 5% cash back at merchants including Amazon, Walmart, Shopify, Squarespace and Zero.
“We believe that people work hard to earn their money and they should be rewarded when they invest in their businesses and not lose their money on hidden bank fees. Access to capital and premium cashback rewards should not be limited to those with prime credit scores,” Nearside founder and CEO Thomson Nguyen stated in the release.
Nearside was founded after Nguyen’s previous startup, Frame Data, was acquired by Square, according to TechCrunch. During his following work as an ‘entrepreneur-in-residence’ at Kleiner Perkins, he found that many small businesses struggle with cash flow, resulting in the conception of Nearside.
While the company declined to share its customers, Nguyen told TechCrunch its user base has increased 800% since its Series A announcement in April.
In other recent fintech news, new rules from the Federal Conduct Authority (FCA) are set to enable London to compete with the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Meta (formerly Facebook) is also testing a Split Payments feature within Messenger, enabling users to share bills amongst group chats.