Fueling GoHenry’s international ambitions
The announcement that our portfolio company GoHenry has been acquired by Acorns in April 2023 is a moment for us to celebrate the accomplishments of some remarkable founders and leaders while also being energized about the road ahead.
For more than 2 years, Revaia has been working with GoHenry and will remain by its side as the company begins this new chapter. While we’re excited about GoHenry’s future, we want to take a moment to look back at the journey to this point because it illustrates how we identify European tech leaders that can become global champions and help them achieve that potential.
The Acorns deal is a catalyst toward fulfilling the dream of GoHenry co-founder Louise Hill who wanted to transform the startup from an important U.K. player into one that is making a global impact.
This was the core of the conversation we had when we first met the GoHenry team in 2019. Founded in 2012, this U.K. fintech had a mission that was clear, crucial, and deeply personal. They wanted to create a service that would improve financial literacy for their own kids, and in the process built a platform that taught 6- to 18-year-olds how to manage money in the digital world.
This vision aligned closely with Revaia’s core values. GoHenry is mission-driven: Its goal is to teach young people the money skills they need to thrive in the world, show them the importance of financial education and help them achieve lifetime financial independence. Knowing how to manage your money is an important life skill and by breaking the cycle of financial illiteracy, GoHenry is addressing a big societal need.
The great companies of tomorrow must invent solutions that transform society and create opportunities for more people. These are the companies we’re eager to back.
In December 2020, we co-led a $40 million investment round into GoHenry alongside US funds Edison Partners, Citi Ventures and Muse Capital. Until that point, the company had built a member base of 1.2 million while relying almost entirely on crowdfunding, a sign of its organic, grassroots momentum. Being part of their first major outside investment round demonstrated the confidence they placed in us to accompany them.
Broader Horizons
GoHenry’s progress had already been admirable. Fintech has been one of the hottest sectors over the past decade, yet it still managed to create a new market for youth services and become a major force in the U.K. market. By creating a relationship with their customers early in their financial lifecycle, they had the possibility over time to create more products to serve them for decades.
“We pioneered the category,” Louise said. “We were the first company in the world to offer this - unbelievable when you think about how obvious the need was for a service like this.”
What GoHenry needed now was scale. At this point, the company had already taken its first steps into the U.S. market. They wanted their new investors to help them accelerate in this important geography.
To do that, they needed more seasoned support at the board level. We helped recruit Tricia Han, CEO of MyFitnessPal in NYC, to join GoHenry’s board, as our board representative. This is a core part of Revaia’s value add to companies and with Tricia being a customer acquisition expert in the consumer space, she has become a strong advisor as the company pursued its U.S. expansion.
At the same time, we believed the company had the capacity to push further into Europe. Revaia is constantly scouting the landscape and watching for startups that could make interesting partners or acquisition targets for our portfolio companies.
That’s how we came across Pixpay, which was providing teen banking services in France and Spain. We thought it was a good moment to connect and see if it could be a strategic fit for GoHenry.
We introduced Benoit Grassin, Pixpay’s CEO, to GoHenry’s team. Along the way, we helped shape the structure of the deal as well as facilitate due diligence.
That M&A journey is a key part of our support to portfolio companies. Our role as a growth investor is to be very sophisticated and help companies boost growth through various options, including acquisitions. In July 2022, GoHenry officially acquired Pixpay.
With this deal secured, GoHenry was ready to go further even faster. Three months later, we helped the company raise a round of $55 million that included another existing investor, Edison Partners, as well as a strategic investor, Nexi. Based in Milan, Nexi operates YAP, a domestic kids’ wallet initiative in that country that would now give GoHenry an entry point into another new territory.
GoHenry had doubled its annual revenue in 2021 to $42 million. This new financing provided the capital for GoHenry to invest even more aggressively across its larger footprint in Europe and its growing operation in the U.S.
Foundation for a global champion
In less than two years, GoHenry put in place the key building blocks to become a major international player. This process set up the company for long-term growth, but it also made GoHenry increasingly attractive to potential acquirers.
Throughout our time with GoHenry, the company has been fielding inquiries from other financial players who were intrigued by its entrepreneurial passion, the potential of its business model, and the strength of its execution. There have been tons of capital flowing through the fintech space and lots of companies wanted to consolidate markets to buy quick growth.
Their goals had remained steadfast: Having a global impact on financial literacy. For that reason, the approach by Acorns felt different.
Of course, there were some similarities with the business of Acorns, a leader in U.S. consumer finance, serving over 4.5 million Americans. But more importantly, Acorns’ management team clearly shared the same mission in terms of building a global champion that could have a big social impact.
“When we met them really it was a case of meeting like-minded people,” Louise said. “Their mission was very, very similar. And when we talked to them, they talked like us, they thought like us. So it made a lot of sense to see if we could work together.”
On a strategic level, the combination of GoHenry-Pixpay-Acorns creates a holistic financial wellness company that can serve customers across all stages of life while expanding on that mission of creating greater access to financial products for kids, teens and adults.
The combined group now helps over 6 million people develop their financial wellness and literacy in the U.S. and in Europe, with a lot of value creation potential around their complementary products and geographies.
With the closing of this deal, Revaia remains an important shareholder, with Elina Berrebi getting an observer seat on the board of directors.
In a world where scale matters, it makes sense to assemble two leaders in their categories. The combination of these two entrepreneurial successes will allow them to create a leader in family finance, crystallizing the ambition of the two companies to deliver financial wellness for life’s many stages.
Reaching this moment is a testament to the passion and vision of the team that created and led GoHenry for more than a decade. As a growth equity partner, we are also proud that our unique position as a European fund with ties to the U.S. allowed Revaia to provide important value for GoHenry’s triumphant international scaling journey.