Greenwood, a digital banking platform aimed at Black and Latino customers, raised $40 million in funding from some of the biggest U.S. lenders and payments companies.
Truist Financial's venture capital division led the Series A funding round, Greenwood said Thursday in a statement. Other investors include Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, PNC, Mastercard and Visa.
Greenwood aims to "create non-predatory lending products, circulate capital into our communities, deploy capital to deserving individuals in the community," Chairman Ryan Glover said in an interview. "This is a multigenerational wealth gap problem. It takes an all-hands-on-deck solution."
Glover co-founded the company with former ambassador Andrew Young and rapper Michael "Killer Mike" Render. He said the firm plans to launch debit and savings accounts this year after amassing a waiting list of more than 500,000 potential customers.
Greenwood has yet to announce which bank will underpin its activities. The digital platform plans to offer jointly branded debit accounts with Black-owned banks and will funnel customers seeking loans to minority-focused institutions.
"We don't typically come in this early pre-product, pre-revenue," said Vanessa Vreeland, head of Truist Ventures. "But we were so excited by their success previously and by what they were trying to accomplish, and also they had been resonating so well with the community," she said, referring to Greenwood's partners.
