Fintech startup Goalsetter lands $15 million to provide families with access to banking and children’s financial literacy app

Wealth disparities are on the rise in the United States. Today, the top 20% of Americans owned 86% of the country’s wealth and the bottom 80% of the population owned 14%. Closing the racial wealth gap requires more than just taxing the rich. Education is foundational to developing future generations and closing the wealth gap. Equally important is financial education. To address these challenges, one startup has made its mission to education-based banking for the whole family.

Enter Goalsetter, a fintech platform dedicated to providing families and K-12 youth with access to banking, savings, investing, and financial education tools. Goalsetter is a goal-based savings and gifting platform, made just for kids and powered by those who love them. The startup also provides a debit card and savings app that teaches kids and teens finance through games, memes, and pop culture.

Today, Goalsetter announced it has closed $15 million in a Series A round led by Seae Ventures. Seae Ventures is joined by Fiserv, Mass Mutual, Sterling National Bank, Citizens Financial Group, Cuna Mutual Financial Group, Astia Fund, and others.

The Series A round also includes return investments from NBA star Kevin Durant, and new investments from Fearless Fund, NBA stars Carmelo Anthony and Andre Drummond, and star actors Anthony Anderson (Blackish), and Lance Gross (House of Payne). Goalsetter will use the new capital infusion to further its B2B partnerships with corporations and financial institutions that are committed to transforming financial education and access to wealth for all Americans.

Founded in 2015 by Tanya Van Court, a former Nickelodeon and ESPN executive, Goalsetter is a children and family finance app that provides a next-generation, education-first banking experience. Tanya got the inspiration to start Goalsetter after she herself struggled with financial literacy, losing more than $1 million in stock during the bubble burst of 2001.

The Goalsetter app combines the best of goal-based savings platforms like Digit and Acorns with the best of gift registries like Zola and Honeyfund. In so doing, targets the millennial mom with a platform that enables families to contribute to kids’ future goals instead of buying them more consumer goods. In turn, Goalsetter becomes a savings vehicle for kids, turning first-time savers into all-the-time savers and giving kids healthy financial habits that will last a lifetime.

Goalsetter and founder Tanya Van Court have been featured in some of the country’s most prominent outlets, including New York Times, Today Show, CNBC, TechCrunch, NBC News, FOX Business, AfroTech, Yahoo Finance, and many others.

Goalsetter works with financial institutions, fintechs, and insurance companies to white-label Goalsetter’s platform and offer wealth management, debit card, and financial education tools for the next generation of their customers. Goalsetter also provides Fortune 1000 companies with employee benefits solutions that will help both employees and their families to become financially healthy.

“Wealth disparities in the United States are vast, and prevalent in every corner of our country,” said Goalsetter Founder and CEO Tanya Van Court. “If we want to transform the bell curve of wealth in our society, we need to start by ensuring that the next generation of Americans are savers, investors and owners. The work starts by giving them early access to financial tools, and making financial education relatable, fun, and accessible, and that is what Goalsetter achieves.”

“For the first time in our nation’s history, there is a sea change in the making that will give every kid and family in America access to both the education and the tools they need to become financially healthy,” said Seae Ventures cofounder Tuoyo Louis. “By enabling corporations and financial institutions to give every customer and employee they serve – from the mailroom to the boardroom – the gift of financial acumen, Goalsetter has become a disruptor for how future generations will learn money and build wealth. Seae is proud to partner with them on this mission to change the trajectory of wealth and health for millions of families throughout the country,” added Louis.

Goalsetter’s Series A investment round comes on the heels of the launch of Goalsetter Invest, a tool that gives families the power to buy, sell, and trade stocks while giving them the financial education needed to do so confidently. With Goalsetter Invest, Goalsetter now boasts a fully-featured financial app for the whole family – offering savings accounts, debit cards, investment accounts, and fun, game-based financial education for parents, teens, kids, and tweens.

In addition, a new partnership with Fiserv will help Goalsetter reach millions more potential users by making it easy for financial institutions to offer co-branded Goalsetter services to their account holders. A leading global provider of payments and financial services technology, Fiserv has relationships with thousands of financial institutions and offers integrations that can enable them to deliver relevant fintech experiences to help attract and serve the next generation of account holders.

Over the past year, Goalsetter has partnered with businessman and philanthropist Robert F. Smith, NBA stars Chris Paul and Harrison Barnes, and NFL star Russell WIlson and wife Ciara, and attracted the interest of organizations such as Nike, American Express, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Jacksonville Jaguars, and Pittsburgh Steelers, who have invested in Goalsetter’s movement to provide a path towards financial freedom for one million Black and Latinx kids across the country.

To date, more than 100 companies, organizations, and influencers have partnered with the family fintech app to financially empower youth and their families by raising awareness around the importance of financial literacy in their respective communities and among their personal fanbase.

Goalsetter’s ground-breaking offering of family-friendly and youth-driven financial education tools and unique programs have set it apart in the banking for teens market. In addition to learning about money through gamification and fun gifs and memes, features such as “Learn to Earn,” which lets kids earn money for every financial quiz question they get right, and “Learn Before You Burn,” which lets parents automatically freeze teens’ and tweens’ debit cards if they haven’t taken their financial literacy quizzes for the week, have been favorites for kids and parents alike.

Goalsetter’s smart money platform for families provides users with an FDIC-Insured Savings Account; an investment platform powered by Goalsetter Advisors, LLC (an SEC-registered investment advisor); the Mastercard Cashola Teen and Tween Debit Card with parental controls, Game-based financial education quizzes; the “Learn before you Burn” parental control feature on the debit card and the “Learn to Earn” financial reward program; as well as the latest cybersecurity features to protect user privacy.

Goalsetter founder Tanya Van Court