The Small Business (SMB) Challenger Banks: Novo

Just 7 years old, Novo is tied for the oldest provider on our digital SMB banking list. The company was founded in 2016 and launched services in 2018. The company says it surpassed $1B in cumulative transactions in April 2021 with $600M in Q1 alone.  That implies a minimum 8x year-over-year growth rate (through April). With 100,000 accounts, that’s an average spend of $2,000/mo.

The startup has raised nearly $300M, the largest amount in the SMB neobank category. It started with a $5M seed in March 2019, followed by a $41M A-round in June 2021, a $125M B in 2022 and topped off with a $125M debt infusion in 2023. The valuations have not been publicly disclosed. Its first outside capital was from the Barclays Techstar accelerator in 2017 (see Techstars demo here).

The company is a popular destination, attracting more than 900,000 monthly visits to its website (Aug 2023), the second-highest level among U.S. SMB digital banks (only Mercury is higher). See also our post on Novo’s web design.

The banking partner is Middlesex Savings Bank, a Natick, MA-based community bank with $5.7B in assets and 32 branches in the Boston suburbs.

Product features:

• Business checking
• Debit card
• Invoicing with embedded payment
• Sub-account (called Reserve)
• Integrations with Stripe, Shopify, Wise, Quickbooks, Zapier, Stripe, Slack
• Funding (merchant advance; requires checking account)

Pricing:

• Free no-interest checking
• $50 min deposit
• ATM fees reimbursed

Perks:

• Stripe ($5k in waived card processing fees)
• Gusto (3 months free, worth $1,700)
• Keeper ($79 tax filing)