Dive Brief:
- Daylight, an LGBTQ+-focused neobank, has secured $15 million in fresh financing — funds the company said it plans to put toward the launch of a new family planning offering.
- The new subscription-based service, called Daylight Grow, is aimed at helping the queer community navigate the financial, legal and logistical milestones that come with creating a family, the company announced Friday.
- The service is undergoing research and development through a pilot program, and is set to launch to the public early next year, the company said.
Dive Insight:
"Family creation is a major life event for queer people, and the challenges we face are increasingly more complex than those for non-LGBTQ people,” Billie Simmons, co-founder and chief operating officer of Daylight, said in a statement. “Daylight Grow will help queer people navigate through the complex legal and financial challenges involved, making it faster and easier to start a family and unlocking critical intergenerational wealth for our community.”
More than 63% of LGBTQ+ millennials want to expand their family, according to a study by the Family Equality Council.
Daylight’s new service will feature family planning concierges, a family-building marketplace with vetted attorney networks, in-vitro fertilization and surrogacy clinics, and loan access, the company said.
“To level the playing field, the company will offer hundreds of free subscriptions to low-income, marginalized families in states where LGBTQ+ rights are under significant legal attack,” the fintech said.
Daylight, whose partner bank is Pathward, via a banking-as-a-service arrangement with Marqeta, said it is not yet ready to disclose Daylight Grow’s subscription cost.
Daylight launched in November 2020 in partnership with Visa as part of the card network’s Fintech Fast Track program.
The neobank’s mission is to fill a financial services gap facing members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, a demographic its founders say have unique financial needs.
“It costs more to be LGBT,” Rob Curtis, Daylight’s co-founder and CEO, told Banking Dive in 2020. “We are subject to higher one-off costs and we have less family support. If you come out to your family, you’re about 40% less likely to have financial support from that point onward. ... So, we’re starting on the backfoot.”
The fintech’s latest financing round was led by Anthemis Group, with participation from CMFG Ventures, Kapor Capital, Citi Ventures and Gaingels.
