Albert, a personal finance automation startup, raises $100M

With 2021 starting off with prospects for the growth of embedded finance, or adding financial services into a range of new use cases (including non-financial ones), the fintech OG – personal finance tech companies – are growing, including Culver City, Calif.-based Albert.

Why should we care?
Personal finance management technology companies, which are known as “PFM” in industry speak, were among the early risers as a nascent fintech industry took off. Albert, founded in 2015, has a toolset that supports the automation of customers’ financial lives, covering spending, planning, investing, and earned-wage access. Albert connects to customers’ bank accounts via APIs to make this happen, much in the same way that Digit or Qapital does. The PFM wave has made its way into banking and investing apps, as large incumbents built new tools inspired by startups (or they just bought them outright, as Goldman did a few years ago). Companies like Albert still feel their solutions offer value to generate a 360-degree view of customers’ finances, making money management effortless. But now Albert, which has garnered 5 million customers, is moving in the direction of a traditional bank. It’s trying to differentiate from its fintech peers through human advice from a team of dedicated experts.