New York City-based FinTech startup Clair has raised $4.5 million in seed funding to disrupt payday lending schemes and help gig workers and freelancers get paid instantly.
The funding was led by Upfront Ventures. Additional investors included Founder Collective, Walkabout Ventures, former Venmo COO Michael Vaughan and Seamless Founder Paul Appelbaum.
“We are thrilled to be one of the only sources of free capital for America’s hourly and gig workers,” Nico Simko, co-founder and CEO of Clair, said in a statement on Friday (Oct. 9). “We believe that everybody should be able to freely access money they’ve already earned.”
He added that payday lenders charging exorbitant interest — often more than 300 percent — outnumber McDonald’s. There are currently more than 82 million hourly employees and 57 million gig workers in the U.S.
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