- Clearbanc announced a rebrand and $100 million in new Series C equity funding to fuel the company’s growth plans, bringing the company’s valuation to almost $2 billion. These are the details.
Clearbanc — the world’s largest e-commerce investor and the company transforming the way founders grow their businesses – announced a rebrand and $100 million in new Series C equity funding to fuel the company’s growth plans, bringing the company’s valuation to almost $2 billion. Oak HC/FT led the round and Co-Founder and Managing Partner Annie Lamont will join the Board of Directors.
New investors include Founders Circle and executives from Stripe, Square, Affirm, Adyen, Robinhood, Betterment, Airbnb, Hubspot, AirWallex and Apple. And the new debt comes from Credigy (a National Bank subsidiary) at a significantly lower cost of capital, allowing Clearco to offer more competitive rates to its growing portfolio than any pay as you grow financing company in history. So far, Clearco has raised over US$170 million of equity.
In order to reflect its evolution from a source of efficient capital for founders to a broader platform of growth products and services, the company is rebranding as Clearco. And with proprietary algorithms that are gender-, race-, and region-agnostic, Clearco is unique in its commitment and ability to fuel entrepreneurship outside of traditional networks and regions.
Even though global VC funding for female founders dropped by 27% in 2020 (according to Crunchbase), Clearco funded 8 times as many companies headed by female founders as traditional VC firms. And in that same timeframe, 13% of Clearco’s funding went to companies headed by Black and LatinX founders, compared to 2.6% for traditional VC firms. In total a third of Clearco funding went to founders of color.
In addition, Clearco’s algorithms “spread the wealth” geographically. And while 80% of typical US VC funding last year went to four states that have traditionally been tech hubs (California, Texas, New York and Massachusetts), Clearco’s total for those states was 45% with 55% going elsewhere. Plus Clearco has funded companies in all 50 US states and all ten Canadian provinces and three territories, as well as the UK, where to date 70% of funds have gone to companies located outside London.
KEY QUOTES:
“The move from Clearbanc to Clearco really signals our move beyond capital. We’ve invested US$2 billion in 4,500 plus companies, and we’re building a product suite to support founders that goes far beyond funding, based on what they’ve told us they need most. Our new name reflects our broad commitment to partnering with founders to build thriving businesses.”
“Our goal is to change the face of fundraising, and we’re really proud to be showing it can be done.”
— Clearco Co-Founder and President Michele Romanow
“With US$2B deployed to more than 4,500 founders, we’ve proven that we can find and fund entrepreneurs using machine learning and AI in a much more egalitarian way, and we’re gratified that the investment community sees that. We’re also excited to welcome Annie to the Clearco Board. Her 30 years of business and investor experience make her the ideal person to join us at this inflection point and work with our executive team to grow our business and brand.”
“Recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic will take all of our best minds. Clearco supported founders right from the start of the pandemic and looks forward to accelerating this support. We’re proud that the technology we’ve developed is identifying promising businesses regardless of who the founder is or where they live, and we look forward to working with them to get the world’s economy back on track.”
— Co-Founder and CEO Andrew D’Souza
“Oak HC/FT is thrilled to partner with the market leader in the alternative funding space. We strongly believe in Clearco’s mission to democratize access to capital, and we’re excited to see this next phase of growth.”
— Annie Lamont
