Rain, a startup providing employer-integrated earned wage entry (EWA) app coupled with financial-wellness options like overdraft alerts and spending traits, has raised $75 million in an all-equity Collection B spherical.
The spherical was led by Prosus at a post-money valuation of $340 million. Rain plans to make use of the brand new funds to assist it add bank card and saving merchandise to its roster, co-founder CEO Alex Bradford, completely tells TechCrunch.
Round 35% of households within the U.S. with an annual revenue beneath $50,000 live paycheck to paycheck, up from 32% in 2019, per a report (PDF) by Financial institution of America printed in October.
Paycheck-to-paycheck populations rise with age and may be anyplace within the U.S., although this report signifies they’re highest within the South. Biweekly paychecks may be laborious to attend for when payments are due any day of the month.
EWA platforms enable staff to get a portion of their paychecks early with a small charge and may be much less predatory than different get-cash-now strategies, like high-interest payday loans.
Rain goals to distinguish its presence and entice employers who need to assist staff entry earned wages between their paychecks with automation.
“As a result of we’re related to all the most important payroll and timekeeping programs, and we constructed automated tooling that makes it tremendous simple for us to onboard employers, there may be very minimal guide work for employers by way of onboarding, and as soon as we go stay, there may be hardly any work day-to-day or pay period-to-pay interval for them,” stated Bradford.
The Los Angeles-based startup, based in 2019, has onboarded over 2.5 million staff and distributed over $2 billion in earned wages, it says. The Rain app says it helps employers retain staff, too.
Rain targets mid-market and enterprise clients with over 300 staff. It prices a charge equal to an ATM charge, a mean of round $3 per transaction, for an immediate transaction. Nevertheless, staff also can use the free ACH possibility, which credit their account as much as the following enterprise day.
Nevertheless, the startup doesn’t need to be one other EWA app within the crowded market. It already presents a monetary training portal, one-on-one monetary teaching, and a free tax submitting and refund service by way of the taxation answer supplier april, Bradford says.
Such providers past EWA truly account for 70% of its month-to-month adoption charge, Bradford says, with the EWA at 30%.
“For us, what success seems like over time is that the consumer wants EWA much less and fewer as a result of they’re now saving increasingly,” Bradford stated.
The Collection B funding, which noticed participation from Nextalia Ventures and Spark Development Ventures, and Rain’s present buyers together with QED, Invus Alternatives, and others, will assist the startup broaden additional past a easy EWA app.
In Q3, the startup plans to launch an EWA-secured bank card with a dynamic credit score restrict primarily based on the verified earned wages it has from the employer payroll programs.
The startup can also be engaged on a product to be rolled out later this 12 months that makes it simpler for workers to make use of their Well being Saving Account (HSA) by letting them spend on any card and get reimbursed. Moreover, it can carry saving accounts later this 12 months with options together with auto-save and rewards.
Rain’s funding comes amid indicators of a extra favorable surroundings for a fintech ecosystem that had seen almost flat progress lately. Funds together with Ribbit Capital are elevating more cash, whereas startups together with Plaid, regardless of elevating a decent-sized spherical of $575 million, have seen a decline of their valuation — indicating a combined surroundings in fintech.
Enterprise funding in international fintech corporations declined 45% year-over-year to $50 billion in 2023, with an analogous funding degree recorded final 12 months, per PitchBook information shared with TechCrunch. In 2025 thus far, $13.1 billion has been raised by international fintech startups. Nevertheless, the typical deal dimension has elevated 20% year-over-year to $21.94 million from $18.27 million in 2024. Particularly within the EWA area, enterprise funding additionally grew 19% year-over-year to $569 million final 12 months.
Not like employer-integrated platforms like Rain, employee-side EWA platforms corresponding to Earnin have confronted crackdowns from regulators over allegedly “predatory” loans for the previous couple of months. Rain’s strategy to enabling financial savings and monetary consciousness alongside offering EWA from the employer’s aspect with automated options helps it standout.
“Constructing a extra complete platform of monetary wellness merchandise will definitely assist us notice our mission, which in the end is to assist tens of millions of individuals get on the trail to monetary freedom,” Bradford acknowledged.
The startup, with 175 staff, can also be scaling its go-to-market by constructing a gross sales staff and investments in gross sales enablement and advertising and channel partnerships. It additionally plans to speculate extra in tooling so as to add extra comfort for employers managing their providers.
In 2023, Rain raised a $116 million Collection A funding spherical that comprised $66 million fairness and $50 million in debt.