When you’re a mother or father, one of many hardest issues about getting divorced continues to be having to cope with your ex about monetary issues relating to your youngsters.
And, in keeping with a 2015 report, simply 50.2% of all 13.6 million custodial mother and father in the US had both authorized or casual little one assist agreements. Even in these instances, most agreements don’t cowl bills past the fundamentals akin to medical payments and extracurricular actions, amongst different issues.
Which means that divorced mother and father find yourself going by way of a whole lot of backwards and forwards about who’s paying for what, how and when. Funds, once you’re co-parenting, are a difficulty even in probably the most amicable of divorces.
The daughter of divorced mother and father herself, Jacklyn Rome based Onward in 2020 with the purpose of serving to divorced and separated mother and father extra simply handle their shared bills. Rome, who beforehand led new product launches at Uber and Blue Apron, mentioned she constructed the app with the intent of not solely assuaging complications for the mother and father but in addition serving to cut back household stress total. As she will be able to personally attest to, youngsters additionally endure vastly from being caught within the center as their estranged mother and father bicker over cash.
Immediately, Onward — previously referred to as Ensemble — raised $9.7 million in a Sequence A funding spherical led by Atlanta-based TTV Capital to advance its mission. Lerer Hippeau, Citi Ventures, Correlation Ventures and Gingerbread Capital additionally participated within the financing. The Los Angeles-based startup beforehand raised $3 million in seed funding in March of 2021.
Since that point, Onward has launched quite a few new options, together with the power to pay your co-parent by way of the platform, partial funds and the power to trace different bills not associated to youngsters, akin to shared mortgages or phone payments.
One co-parent, for instance, might have taken a baby to the dentist at a price of $120. They will add a photograph of the receipt, and the opposite co-parent will get a notification to view all the small print concerning the expense. The 2 can negotiate if wanted, all by way of the app, and settle the expense by way of a connection to fee suppliers akin to Venmo or Zelle by way of the Onward platform.
Rome mentioned the corporate has grown considerably, with practically 100,000 installs. Thus far, Onward has leaned into social media as a advertising and marketing instrument, together with leveraging TikTok as a platform. By partnering with influencers who’re co-parents, Rome mentioned, the startup has boosted consciousness of its providing.
Onward stays pre-revenue. The corporate plans to start monetizing early subsequent 12 months by way of “a set” of recent monetary merchandise,” together with related bank cards, in keeping with Rome. Down the road, Onward can also construct out a paid subscription mannequin.
Picture Credit: Onward
Incorporating transparency into the platform has additionally been a precedence, Rome mentioned.
“Fairly often, males will say that transparency is their greatest ache level — they could or might not imagine that the bills are authentic,” she advised Fintech. “In our app, they’ll view receipts and finally with our playing cards, will be capable of have a third-party confirm the place each transaction happened.”
Onward’s new capital will go towards constructing out these merchandise, further testing of recent advertising and marketing channels and boosting its present headcount of 10.
Whereas there are a variety of fintechs within the broader household tech area akin to Greenlight, Step and Acorns, Rome believes there’s a “ton of inexperienced area on this market.”
“There are 50 million co-parents in the US, they usually characterize an enormous, large market that hasn’t but been served,” she mentioned. As to why, Rome speculated that “it is likely to be thought-about somewhat bit much less horny of a market, or those that have been by way of it are usually much less more likely to discovered an organization.”
TTV Capital doubled down on its funding in Onward, with companion Mark Johnson describing the app as being “sensible in its simplicity.”
“Jacklyn and her group have actually listened to the co-parents who’re utilizing the app — and have gone above and past in rolling out new enhancements and options primarily based on their wants,” he wrote by way of electronic mail. “We’re proud to assist Onward as they scale to assist much more co-parents simply navigate their distinctive monetary conditions.”