Black-Focused Neobank First Boulevard Raises $5 Million

First Boulevard, a neobank focused on the Black community, announced on Friday (Feb. 26) that it has raised $5 million in seed funding. The bank aims to use this funding to expand its team and its customer base, and to add a range of features in advance of the platform’s expected launch in the third quarter of 2021. Investors included Barclays and Anthemis, as well as notable angels such as Jamere Jackson, John Buttrick and actor Gabrielle Union.

The neobank aims to offer financial services to Black communities across the U.S. that have historically been overlooked by traditional banks, despite their collective spending power of $1.4 trillion annually. The platform will provide opportunities to build wealth and reinvest in Black-owned businesses with a wide range of sophisticated financial instruments.

Among the tools First Boulevard intends to provide to its customer base are offer fee-free debit cards, financial education content, a Black business marketplace that rewards shopping from Black-owned businesses, and technology to help members automate their saving and wealth-building goals.

“The wealth gap is the worst it’s ever been,” Co-founder and CEO Donald Hawkins told Karen Webster in an interview. “Homeownership is worse nowadays than it was in the 1960s. And when you think about assets and wealth-building, the Black community in general really doesn’t have that conversation and relationship when it comes to money.”

Before First Boulevard, Hawkins founded Griffin Technologies, a FinTech company that provides real-time data to community banks and credit unions. Co-founder and COO Asya Bradley, meanwhile, recently served as head of revenue for Synapse, a platform that built banking-as-a-service APIs to bring unbanked consumers into the banking fold.

“History has proven that oppressed communities can succeed when their finances are centralized, and when it comes to financial services for the Black community, a centralizing force is long overdue,” said Hawkins in a company statement. “After viewing yet another tragedy engulf the Black community, and the all-too-familiar protests against persisting issues, it was beyond clear to me that the solutions Black America needs must be financially focused and developed within our community.”

“The current financial industry was not built to serve the needs of melanated people, because we were excluded from its construction,” added Bradley. “Three out of four Black mothers are breadwinners for their families, but Black women are burdened with the most student debt of any U.S. demographic. First Boulevard understands the unique needs of our community, so we provide early access to wages, round-up savings features, plus targeted financial education and budgeting tools to improve livelihoods and build generational prosperity for Black America.”

By 2053, the company pointed out, the median income for Black families in the U.S. is predicted to fall to $0, and the unforeseen economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic has only accelerated this trend. First Boulevard aims to use its automated tools to combat this alarming disappearance of wealth.

“Diverse talent and leadership are key ingredients to a successful financial ecosystem. The First Boulevard team has set its sights on an important segment of the market, one which [the] current infrastructure does not support,” said Katie Palencsar, an investor at the Female Innovators Lab by Barclays and Anthemis. “As investors, we believe that Asya and Donald’s platform will democratize wealth in financial services and go a long way in shaping a financial ecosystem that is fit for purpose. We’re beyond thrilled to support them on their journey to growth.”

The company has also announced its partnership with Visa on the Fintech Fast Track Program launching later this year. First Boulevard will be the first platform to pilot Visa’s new suite of crypto APIs, which will enable their customers to purchase and trade digital assets. The company will also launch a First Boulevard Visa Debit card, which offers early access to wages, Black community-centric rewards and educational tools.

“In addition to working with First Boulevard to help them issue debit cards,” Cuy Sheffield, head of crypto at Visa, told PYMNTS, “we’ll be working with them to pilot this new set of crypto [application programming interfaces (APIs)]…we’ll enable First Boulevard customers to buy and sell bitcoin” through digital accounts.