We are thrilled to announce our latest investment in Wellthi, led by Founder and CEO Fonta Gilliam. Headquartered in Washington, DC, Wellthi, is a financial technology company that partners with community and institutional banks, governments, and affinity groups to attract new customers and better support existing clients by providing a customized experience focused on social banking and wealth management. We are thrilled to come alongside mission and strategic aligned investors Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures 1863 Ventures, The W Fund, and Halcyon.
What excited us most about Fonta is her deep understanding of social savings traditions in communities around the world. A global perspective. As a former U.S. Foreign Service Officer, Fonta traveled and worked to countries such as Mozambique, Ethiopia, South Africa, Kenya, South Korea working to design and launch policies and programs to increase access to capital for women exporters and entrepreneurs. This is where she noticed informal saving systems in communities, particularly for those communities that are underbanked or unbanked.
When she returned home to Washington, DC, she was energized to apply her experience abroad to help narrow resource gaps with diverse banking consumers in the U.S. Fonta founded Wellthi with the understanding that narrowing the wealth gap requires a financial support system where anyone, particularly diverse individuals can find and leverage innovative financial products to support their financial goals. With the context of a significant racial wealth gap — the median net worth of a white household nearly 8 times greater than that of a typical Black household — and a recent report by the Brookings Institute showed that in predominantly Black neighborhoods, Black borrowers and depositors face considerable challenges to access banking services.
We believe an exciting opportunity exists at the intersection of a time-tested, internationally successful tradition of social savings and fintech. With adoption rates accelerating among all demographics in recent years. 88% of US consumers now use fintech (+30% y/y), and 57% use digital savings tools (+24% y/y), per a Plaid survey in 2021. We believe Wellthi is well positioned to partner with ~10k small banks and credit unions to attract and retain customers by delivering these services.
Zeal’s investment underscores the demand for technological innovations that democratize access to wealth creation. We have deep conviction that Wellthi is best positioned to help improve consumer financial health at scale, and an effort towards make financial resources and social banking accessible to all.
Onwards Fonta and team 🚀