Orum, a New York-based startup building intrabank transfer infrastructure interfaces, announced raising a $56 million Series B co-led by Accel and Canapi Ventures, according to a press release.
The company says it will use the funding to invest in tech infrastructure, develop its data, AI and machine learning technology and scale its team.
Orum uses machine-learning backed APIs to move money between a network of banks, expediting the time it takes for customers to migrate and access their money across institutions.
Founded in 2019, the company was founded as a result of CEO Stephany Kirkpatrick’s history and experience working at LearnVest, a personal finance site sold to Northwestern Mutual for $375 million in 2015. LearnVest founder Alexa von Tobel later formed Inspired Capital in 2015, a venture capital firm that helped fund Orum’s $5.2 million seed round in August 2020.
“I saw firsthand the deep cracks in our financial infrastructure. While most Americans are not familiar with the intricacies of ACH or why it takes multiple business days to move money between accounts, Orum is wholly focused on unlocking a better system,” Kirkpatrick said in the release.
“We’re investing in a best-in-class team to use data, AI, and machine learning to move money smartly across all payment rails, and in doing so, to provide universal financial access.”
Orum released Foresight, its product that lets financial institutions move money in real time, in September 2020. The platform, embeddable in financial institutions’ existing platforms, uses machine learning and data analytics to estimate when funds will be available.
The company’s Momentum product uses payment infrastructure to route money between banks and is powered by JPMorgan Chase and Silicon Valley Bank, according to TechCrunch.
“They power the back end of our Momentum platform that allows the money to move on a multirail basis,” Kirkpatrick told TechCrunch.
Orum currently serves multiple enterprise partners, including Alloy, HM Bradley, First Horizon Bank and Zero Financial, and is growing transaction volume 100% month-over-month.
One of Orum’s notable aspects is its diversity across the organization. The company has a team that is 48% female and 48% non-white. The company states the focus on diversity is inspired by the Cap Table Coalition, a partnership amongst high-growth startups and emerging investors who want to close the racial wealth gap.
The round also included funding from the Neythri Features Fund, a group of South Asian women aiming to invest in the next generation of female founders and diverse teams, according to the release.