On the evening of May 22, 2019 the Aztec Theater in downtown San Antonio away hummed with energy as hundreds of investors and community members filled the seats.
Behind the curtain, six local startups were poised to make major announcements about products they had coming out, aggressive growth strategies, and the ways they planned to topple titans of industry. It has been months since our team last made a major public announcement; everyone on the FloatMe was excited to showcase our platform.
As we’ve mentioned previously, today 78% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and less than one in two early career employees can manage a $50 income disruption. This has led to some alarming headlines.
At Demo Day, we told the story of Amy, a single mom and one of our users who was just days away from payday but was short the $15 she needed for gas to drive her kids to school and drive to work. Amy didn’t have a credit card (less than two in three millennials have sufficient credit available for these emergencies) best and fastest option was to “loan” herself the money she needed by overdrafting her bank account- costing her $35 in overdraft fees.
Amy isn’t alone: Large banks and payday lenders are a $46 billion industry, with two payday lending storefronts per Starbucks (and there are a LOT of Starbucks!). As we told the audience, our team believes there can be a better option for Amy.
We created FloatMe to provide a simple app to provide a financial wellness and savings platform that protects their paycheck by offering up to $25 Floats (nano-advances) during emergencies- with no extra fees or interest. Instead, we charge a flat monthly subscription fee that provides access to all our standard features.
At the event, Josh walked investors and community members through how FloatMe functions, the ways we keep your information safe (and connect with 16,000+ financial institutions), and our ambitious vision. Afterwards, we had a wonderful time conversing with audience members, Geekdom staff, and members of Alamo Angels- we can’t wait to share with you what’s coming next!
We are excited to be launching our updated platform this summer in a rolling release; stay tuned for more details and join the thousands of employees signing up each month for FloatMe at www.floatme.io/register
