Send your congratulations to wagely! This Indonesia-founded earned wage access (EWA) startup just raised a $23M round.

• Launched in 2020, they currently operate in Indonesia and Bangladesh, where they will continue expanding in.
• They disbursed over $25M in salaries, processed nearly 1M transactions, and were available to 500,000+ workers in 2023.

Investor check. Applied Gen AI investor Capria Ventures led the equity round, along with existing investors and a private debt fund.

• The first time they’ve raised debt. The round is a mix of debt and equity.
• They last raised a $8.9M Pre-Series A in 2022.
• The fundraise announcement comes a week after former CEO Tobias Fischer steps down, with COO and co-founder Kevin Hausberg taking over.

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🧐 How it works

Instead of offering salary advances or loans, Wagely’s EWA solution lets employees of partner companies access their earned (but unpaid) wages ahead of their paydays.

• Say bye to cash advances and loans. If you’ve worked 5 days this month, EWA lets you access 5 days’ worth of wages already, even if it’s not yet payday!

Money talk. Right now, wagely makes money through the fees they charge per EWA transaction.

• It’s typically $1-$2.50, depending on the location and financial wellbeing of the user.

They’ve grown revenue 5x and tripled their business from last year.

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💪🏼 Beyond just EWA

With the $$$, they’ll be expanding into financial services like savings and insurance. The goal? Build a broader financial wellness platform.

Oh, and they’ll also be exploring generative AI-based use cases.

• Some examples? Automated document processing and local language conversational interfaces for workers to help them make smarter financial decisions.

Zooming out. Fellow fintech, BNPL platform Klarna announced the results of their AI assistant powered by OpenAI—and it’s going well.