A close look at Varo Bank
A U.S. mobile-only neobank, Varo Money, was the first of its kind to receive a national bank charter last year. It was reported at the time that since receiving its bank charter, Varo had doubled its number of opened accounts to 4 million and tripled its revenue. This was despite raising $510 million in a Series E funding round in September 2021.
Varo announced Corey Carlisle as its new Head of Public Policy in early February. Corey served as executive director of the American Bankers Association Foundation and was a senior vice president for the American Bankers Association. Jon Alferness was also named Chief Product Officer and Dr. Jakub Jurek was appointed Chief Data Officer by Varo in mid-February. In his previous role, Jon was responsible for the engineering, product, and revenue teams at Rideshare and Lyft. Jakub held various positions at Figure Technologies, Wealthfront and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He was also a professor at Princeton University's Bendheim Center for Finance.
Varo recently announced its Varo Perks Program, which offers customers a way to earn cashback on their purchases similar to traditional credit card rewards programs without needing a high-cost credit card. With this program, Varo may be able to attract more partnerships from brands looking to access Varo's broad customer base. In addition, it may be able to attract potential new users to the platform.
Disclaimer:
CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY: The opinions expressed in this document are for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice. This document is not a recommendation of, or an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to buy, any particular security, strategy or investment product. The information contained
within this document does not represent a guarantee of performance or prediction of future performance of any aforementioned company. Starport Capital Management, LLC makes every effort to curate recent news that may be of interest, regarding each portfolio company, for the convenience of our investors. However, given the nature of privately-held companies, we cannot guarantee the veracity or entirety of information reported, only that we make every effort to aggregate our research from reputable sources. All information is subject to change. Contents of this document are not intended for use as due diligence materials upon which to base any new investment decisions.
