- LA-based company Pepper Financial announced it raised $5.6 million in a seed round of funding
Pepper Financial — an LA-based company that helps direct-to-consumer startups successfully scale their businesses — announced it raised $5.6 million in a seed round of funding from Upfront Ventures, Lerer Hippeau, and Manta Ray Ventures, according to TechCrunch. Pepper Financial can help predict and understand how every investment they make can impact the future health of their company.
Pepper Financial is able to make these determinations based on marketing spend, salaries, office space, travel and entertainment, and other perks.
The company has six founders of which five worked together at Snap. These founders include CEO James Borow, Geoffrey Anderson, Chris Lorenz, Sean Friedland, Daniel Druger, and Spencer Anderson.
Borow previously worked at Snap’s revenue programs. Prior to launching Pepper, Borow sold his company SHIFT.com to Brand Networks for $50 million. Then Snap acquired the SHIFT.com technology from Brand Networks.
Pepper Financial was formed upon the merge of a business that Borow formed and a company called Forge Platform (founded by Lorenz and Anderson). The two companies also combined funding so $1 million out of the $5.6 million was from Forge’s investment from Upfront and Manta Ray.
There are also a number of former and current Snap employees who are supporting Pepper Financial, including former Snap chief strategy officer Imran Khan, former Snap head of global sales Jeff Lucas, former Snap global head of sales finance Omar Hasan, former Snap head of international expansion Dante DiCicco, and former Snap head of brand partnerships Cristina (Grace) Borow. Cristina is the wife of James.
The reason why the company is Snap heavy is due to people being confident about what Borow and the company co-founders did at the social company.
