Paycheck Management Pioneer Budge Announces Fundraising Round From Industry Titans to Build Debt- and Savings-Focused Employee App
Spearheaded by serial fintech entrepreneur Hussain Zaidi, Budge automates employer and employee contributions directly to an employee's most pressing financial goals.
NEW YORK, September 15, 2022 (Newswire.com) - Budge, the paycheck management application empowering HR departments to help employees achieve their most critical financial goals by streamlining pre-determined employer or employee contributions directly to debt and savings goals, announces today its seed round investment of $1.75 million from a roster of wealth management and fintech legends:
- Steve Lockshin, Founder of Vanilla
- Bruce Carnegie Brown, Chairman at Lloyd's of London
- Eric Clarke, Founder and CEO of Orion
- Brett Danko, President at Financial Planning Resource Center
- Michael Giles, Founder and CEO Embed, previously CEO of Cash App Investing
- Salman Syed, COO of Fidel API, previously GM of Marqeta
Founded in 2021 by 20-year wealth management veteran CEO Hussain Zaidi, who also co-founded Advizr, an innovative financial planning platform acquired by Orion in 2019, Budge intends to close the advice and service gap between the paycheck management needs of everyday Americans, and the asset management focus of the financial services industry.
"The reality is, the concept of real 'financial advice' is still reserved for households with an attractive level of investable assets," said Zaidi. "These households have access to endless service models, including RIAs, private banks, family offices and more, because it's the entire 'asset management' industry's goal to support them. Unfortunately, 70% of the country has little to no investable assets."
This vast majority, Zaidi explained, is worried about covering unexpected expenses and managing crushing credit card and student loan debt. For these clients, Zaidi, who spent 12 years as a financial planner and CFP, provided guidance about moving paycheck dollars to debt and savings accounts, directly from their paycheck.
"Most didn't need asset management. They needed paycheck management," he said. "Especially with the student loan pause coming to an end this December, which is going to affect millions of Americans who will have to resume their payments, Budge is perfectly positioned to arm employers with multiple strategies to help ease employees into their payment again."
Budge not only offers a way for employees to 'set and forget' contributions to emergency savings and debt goals, but it also provides a powerful recruitment and retention benefit to Human Resources Departments dealing with the effects of the ongoing Great Resignation.
Using Budge, which works seamlessly with the leading payroll programs, HR leaders can choose to allocate monetary contributions like sign-on bonuses, performance incentives, raises, and more to employee-chosen financial goals (tax free up to $5,250 per employee if directed to their student loan). Budge also empowers employees to direct a portion of their paycheck to the debt and savings goals they choose, much in the same way they can contribute to 401K or 403(b) retirement programs.
Budge is led by Zaidi and Yan Avery, Chief Technology Officer, who spent nearly three decades building innovative and highly scalable solutions for fast-growing tech companies. Most recently, Avery led Montreal-based fintech Expertus Technologies, building its serverless wires and payments offering. He was a critical part of the M&A team that managed their acquisition by IBM in late 2020.
To learn more about Budge, visit budge.app or subscribe to the Budge Brief, a biweekly newsletter published on LinkedIn and via email.
About Budge
Budge, the premier paycheck management application empowering HR Departments to automatically direct employer and employee contributions to employees' most pressing financial goals, was founded in 2021 by financial services veteran and fintech entrepreneur, Hussain Zaidi. Through an integration with leading payroll platforms, Budge enables employees to 'set and forget' contributions to emergency savings and credit card and student loan debt, helping them achieve financial security while giving HR leaders the advantage of a powerful recruitment and retention benefit.
Source: Budge, Inc.