Fintech startup Jasper Card bags $34M in funding to challenge how traditional financial institutions make money

Jasper Card (formerly CreditStacks), a New York-based fintech startup that’s challenging how traditional financial institutions make money, today announced it has raised $34 million in Series A financing to grow its AI technology to further develop its underwriting model and introduce a new line of financial services.

The round was led by Benslie International Fund, with 500 Startups, Gauss Ventures, Off The Grid Ventures, OurCrowd, and SIBF completing the round, which includes a $10M in funds announced previous to the company’s rebrand in 2020 from CreditStacks.

In conjunction with the funding, Jasper also announced that Mark Goines, Vice-Chair of Personal Capital, has joined its Board of Directors that includes CardWorks Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Don Berman, Fraud Sciences Founder and CEO, Saar Wilf, Teva Pharmaceuticals’ former CFO, Eyal Desheh, and Industrialist Francisco Morphy.

Founded in 2015 by Bob Hartheimer, Elnor Rozenrot, Jonathan Jacobi, and Shahar Nechmad, Jasper is innovating to give customers what they actually want: more cashback and the tools to maintain a financially healthy lifestyle. Jasper offers a credit card designed for professionals. The company uses technology to assess applicants holistically, so applicants may qualify for a premium Jasper Mastercard, issued by WebBank, even if they are just starting their credit journey.

Since its inception six years ago, Jasper has provided access to more than 15,000 credit cards issued by WebBank, with these cards being used to spend over $90M running on the MasterCard network. WebBank has also provided Jasper with access to $100M in receivables financing to accelerate the Jasper Card program, which has been growing 20% month-over-month.

Unlike the traditional banks, customers are approved based on their future potential credit, not only their credit history. In this manner, Jasper has provided access to credit cards to over 15,000 customers used more than 1.3 million times. Jasper Card employs more than 50 people across its development center in Israel and the NYC headquarters.

Jasper Card quickly expanded upon CreditStacks’ original mission—helping professionals entering the United States without credit scores gain their financial footing—to include all consumers in America. Jasper Card gives back most of the money it makes from customers through a revolutionary cashback program based on customers referring friends to join the Jasper revolution, shifting power back to individuals. For every friend customers bring on board, they both earn a 1% cashback boost for a full year, all the way up to 6%.

“It’s time to present a new disruptive way for people to manage and grow their personal finances,” said Elnor Rozenrot, Founder and CEO of Jasper Card. “Many banks have flashy websites and mobile apps, but the essence of the digital revolution that’s democratized so many parts of our life—win-win, fairness, the economy of one—has not followed. Imagine all your financial products, whether it’s credit cards, bank accounts, or loans, combined into one single service that just works for your benefit. That is exactly what we’ve set out to do, and we are on track to give our customers back most of what many financial institutions have taken for themselves.”

The Jasper model is based on an algorithm-driven underwriting platform that relies on income, employment, and a variety of other sources for producing a credit score based on the customer’s predicted future credit behavior rather than looking backward.

“This has been a mammoth undertaking, and I’m proud to join an amazing team that has more than 150 years of experience in building and running businesses and financial companies, with a shared belief that banking should be made to work for customers,” said Mark Goines, Jasper Card’s newest Board Member and Vice-Chair of Personal Capital.