Freelancing can be extremely rewarding, but it is not for the faint of heart. Between the constant budgeting, expense tracking and complicated tax process, the business of being your own boss can be pretty overwhelming.
Although the market is inundated with neobanks looking to help users be more financially responsible (Current, Charlie, and Chime to name a few), none of them have really narrowed their focus down to just freelancers. That is, until Lili came along.
Launched in early 2020, Lili is a mobile banking app designed specifically for freelancers and gig workers. Like many other challenger banks gaining popularity right now, it offers things like free ATMs, spending notifications, banking insights, and no account fees or minimum balance requirements. The platform also has features that are particularly useful if you’re a freelancer. This includes “personalized tax buckets,” which enable users to allocate a certain percentage of their deposits to taxes, and the “emergency bucket,” which allows users to put away a portion of their money for rainy days.
“Becoming an entrepreneur or freelancer — your own boss — is one of the most exciting life decisions you can make,” co-founder and CEO Lilac Bar David said in a statement. “We’ve created the tools you need to spend more time building your venture and less time on things that historically your employer would handle, sorting expenses, managing financials, and filing taxes.”
Now, with $55 million of fresh funding in its coffers, Lili is going to expand its platform to address even more pain points, adding features related to invoice and payment management, as well as new credit products. The Series B was led by Group 11, with participation from Target Global, AltalR and various unnamed existing investors.
Lili is also hiring, with a handful of open tech positions available at its offices in NYC and Tel Aviv.
This latest investment comes less than a year after Lili announced its $10 million Series A, and caps off a year of significant growth for the young startup. In fact, usage of the app grew by a whopping 1,500 percent in the last 12 months, and its account base doubled in less than 6 months — a phenomenon the company attributes to the nation’s rapidly growing freelancer population amid the pandemic.
Research indicates that about 40 percent of U.S. workers are freelancers, and the market is estimated to be worth more than $1 trillion. Going forward, as more professionals seek out more flexible work options and supplemental income, freelancing is expected to become even more popular. Dovi Frances, a founding partner of Group 11, says Lili is positioned to dominate this space.
“Lili is currently the only fintech product designed to address the needs of this rapidly growing sector of entrepreneurs,” Frances said in a statement. “We anticipate the freelancer economy will continue to grow robustly even beyond the pandemic tailwinds. Lili is poised to see exponential growth by continuing to offer this demographic effective and intuitive tools to manage a previously complex side of doing business.”
