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Business banking start-up Emerge has closed a $12 million SeriesA round – which comes on top of $10m across four seeding rounds – and is aiming to sign 15,000 SME customers over the next 18 months.
Co-founders Jamie Jermain and Jovan Pavlicevic, who have five kids between them, started SquareOne in 2021. They saw a market gap for an app that provided parents with tools to help kids learn about money and savings – and provided them with a MasterCard-backed debit card, with a $5 per month fee. In April this year, they expanded to launch Emerge, which Pavlicevic pitches as “the future of business banking”. (The company is not a registered bank, but aims to be.)
Emerge cofounders Jovan Pavlicevic (left) and Jamie Jermain.
Instead of a boss sharing their credit card, which risks it getting lost, its details scrawled everywhere and people texting the CVC to each other – staff are issued with physical and digital debit cards that can be loaded with funds and used by everyone in the business.
Emerge captures receipts in an app for expenses, integrates with Xero, supports Apple Pay and Google Pay, includes real-time alerts and allows the likes of scheduled payments and card limits and controls.
Emerge supports both physical and debit cards.
Being outside traditional banking allows rapid onboarding, Pavlicevic says.
“If you walk into a branch and say: ‘I’ve started a business. You’ve already got my mortgage. You’ve got my personal accounts. You’ve got my credit cards and insurance. I’ve banked with you for 35 years. I’d love a business bank account, please,’ they’ll say: ‘Sure, come back on the 35th of Nevervember and when we’ll present you with a ream of paperwork. We might want you to bring your accountant in to talk to us and give us a Dragon’s Den-style pitch about your business and why we should grant you access to this sacred, uh, magical thing called a business bank account.
“What can take four or five months and multiple branch visits becomes four or five minutes with Emerge. You can download our app and do it in the comfort of your home.”
