Announcing Slash’s $19m Seed and Series A

Today, we're excited to announce that Slash has raised $19m in our Seed and Series A rounds, both of which were led by Rick Yang at NEA, with additional participation from Y Combinator, Menlo Ventures, Connect Ventures, Soma Capital, Tinder co-founder and former CMO Justin Mateen, Plaid co-founder William Hockey, and other angels and funds.

—

I like to think that most people, if given the opportunity and the right conditions, will choose to work for themselves. They like working on things that make them passionate, they like working where and when they want and on their own time, and they like feeling like they have unbounded earning potential.

The internet has made it significantly easier for anyone, anywhere, to work for themselves. It is now functionally very straightforward to sell products, courses, skills, and content to millions of people across the globe. 4.4 million entrepreneurs have created a Shopify site, 6.3 million have sold products on Amazon, and 18 million have freelanced on Upwork alone.

Half a century ago, Phil Knight had to go to Herculean lengths – months of correspondence via physical mail, frequent visits to factories in Japan, and more – to sell his first pair of Onitsuka shoes out of the trunk of his car. Today, 15 year olds can start drop-shipping any product to any person anywhere in the world by clicking buttons on a screen for a couple hours, and grow multi-million person audiences from the comfort of their living room.

Over the past two years, I’ve had the privilege of personally chatting with thousands of young (often teenage) entrepreneurs who’ve decided to leverage the internet to embark on a path towards financial freedom. I’ve come to know Michael, who bootstrapped his way to building a Discord community that generates over a $100,000 a month, Brenden, a 19 year old who is paying for his own college tuition from the profits he made flipping sneakers and NFTs in high school, and Isaiah, who made hundreds of thousands from his wholesale electronics business during the pandemic. All three of them, and tens of thousands of other Slash customers like them, have an insatiable desire to be financially free.

Slash exists for two reasons:

The first, is to empower existing entrepreneurs like Michael, Brenden, and Isaiah to run more efficient, larger, and more profitable businesses. We’re living up this ideal via our virtual card product that lets drop-shippers acquire more inventory, our instant payouts feature that allows GOAT and Amazon sellers to improve their cashflow, and our Slash for <18 feature that enables any teenager to set up their own business bank account with the consent of their parents.

Our second goal is to embolden more people to take the leap towards self-employment. While it comes with higher earning potential, being your own boss also means having to source your own products, and being your own business’ accounting and legal back office. We are already helping our customers stay more organized by giving them dedicated accounts for personal and business spending. Over time, however, we aim to play a more meaningful role in all their financial workflows by offering built-in accounting, incorporation, tax filing, and invoicing from the Slash dashboard.

When people ask me why I dropped out of school to work on Slash, I give them three reasons:

1. We think we built something people want. Tens of thousands of small businesses that collectively spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year already use Slash. The opportunity cost of staying in school was too high.
2. I like building products more than I like sitting in a classroom.
3. And most importantly, I truly fuck with our customers. They’re all like me and my co-founder: young, hungry, and out to get that bag. No shame in it.

My co-founder Kevin and I have spent the past two years, and want to spend the rest of our lives working to enable as many people as possible to chart their own path.

If you’re looking for a new business bank account, sign up for Slash here.

—

Note: Slash is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Piermont Bank, Members FDIC.