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New Zealand's aspiring challenger bank, Emerge, has secured $12 million in a Series A funding round.
Founded by Jamie Jermain and Jovan Pavlicevic, the startup launched business accounts and cards to address the difficulties faced by New Zealand businesses in traditional banking. Pavlicevic stated, "Emerge was built to help Kiwi businesses do more, faster, better. In just a few minutes, you've opened as many Emerge accounts as you need, with features better than the banks, and team cards ready to go. Against the months of work and paper forms needed in applying for a legacy bank account, we're seeing very fast customer love - and we're just getting started."
The funding round was led by Altered Capital with participations from Icehouse Ventures, K1W1, NZ Fintech Fund, and US-based Hard Yaka. The company plans to use the funds to expand its marketing, sales, and product teams and enhance its market strategy. Commenting on customer reception, Jermain noted, "Feedback from customers has been overwhelmingly positive. They love how fast, easy, and transparent everything is, and the time and money they save which goes back into their business - so now it's time to share this with even more of the country."
Altered Capital, which has previously invested in successful UK-based Starling Bank, reiterated its support for Emerge's vision. Managing Partner McGregor Fea commented, "Emerge believes in New Zealand's entrepreneurial potential, and its frictionless experience is already having a massive impact on the way that Kiwis manage their money. We're excited to support them to redefine what banking can be: from New Zealand to New Zealand and the world."
Emerge's service offering is designed to eliminate the need for branch visits and paperwork by providing a fully digitised onboarding process. Jermain explained, "We've built the industry's simplest offering. No branch visits and no paperwork are needed thanks to a fully digitised onboarding process." The platform allows businesses to open accounts instantly and generate new cards with centralised controls and real-time notifications.
Additionally, Emerge is introducing new features in the New Zealand market, such as EmergePay, which converts mobile phones into payment terminals, and batch payments that facilitate invoice settlements directly from accounting software. Enriched transactions provide insights into spending patterns, further simplifying financial management for businesses.
While Emerge is not yet a registered bank, it seeks to become a full-fledged challenger to improve financial services for its clients, which include businesses and, in the future, individual customers and sole traders. Pavlicevic concluded, "Emerge is so much more than just better business accounts - it's a gateway to smarter, faster business operations. With this new capital, we're excited to really expand our impact and keep helping NZ do more with money."
