ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Greenwood, the digital banking platform for Black and Latino individuals and businesses, today announced its acquisition of Kinly, a digitally native neobank building generational wealth for Black America and its allies, bringing the two largest fintechs focused on the Black community together as one company. The acquisition will help grow Greenwood’s ecosystem of over one million members and provide Kinly’s community of over 300,000 with priority access to Greenwood’s unique, comprehensive financial product that emphasizes community building and wealth creation for Black and brown people.
Since its launch in 2020, Kinly has raised $20 million in funding from key investors like Forerunner Ventures, Point72 Ventures, Anthemis, and Kapor Capital to improve the financial outcomes of Black America and allies through financial education, saving and wealth building. Over the last three years, Kinly has helped its growing community of members manage their day-to-day finances by offering early access to direct deposit funds, cash back rewards, and overdraft protections.
“Kinly has always shared in our commitment to building a more transparent banking experience for Black Americans,” said Ryan Glover, CEO and co-founder of Greenwood. “The acquisition of Kinly represents a massive milestone for Greenwood as we continue in our shared effort to elevate financial tools available for our community. In partnership with Donald Hawkins from Kinly, we plan to grow our footprint and expand our services to provide best-in-class experiences for Black and brown families and businesses.”
As part of the acquisition, Donald Hawkins, founder and CEO of Kinly, will join the Greenwood executive management team as a Vice President to support key strategic initiatives in financial services and other areas with the goal of advancing economic empowerment, consumer-focused innovation, and local Atlanta-entrepreneurship.
“Kinly’s mission of financial empowerment and wealth-building stems from lessons learned from Black America’s history,” said Donald Hawkins, CEO of Kinly.“The needs of our communities are many and I couldn’t be more excited to combine efforts with Greenwood to create lasting generational change.”
This acquisition marks Greenwood’s third acquisition over the last year, highlighting the company’s continued expansion plans to bring best-in-class offerings together for its members. Since the beginning of 2022, Greenwood has also acquired The Gathering Spot, A3C, and Valence to provide its members with access to additional professional services, networking opportunities and cultural experiences. The company also launched Elevate, a premium lifestyle product designed exclusively for Greenwood members, unlocking unique cultural and lifestyle experiences.
“It is another proud moment to again have two Black-owned companies on both sides of an M&A transaction,” said Paul Judge, Board member at Greenwood. “This shows the power of collaboration within the community. It is often said that if you want to go far, go together. This collaboration is a stellar example of that belief. We welcome Donald and Kinly to the Greenwood family.”
To learn more about Greenwood, visit: gogreenwood.com
About Greenwood
Greenwood is the digital banking platform for Black and Latino individuals and businesses. Greenwood’s mission is to support financial freedom for minorities through community building, career advancement, and financial services. Greenwood’s flagship product is a best-in-class digital banking service provided by partnering with FDIC-insured banks. Greenwood Inc, includes The Gathering Spot, a private membership network and Valence, the career development and job recruiting platform. The combined community has over 1 million people. Greenwood’s founders include civil rights leader, Andrew J. Young, Ryan Glover, founder of the Bounce TV Network, Dr. Paul Judge, and music artist and activist, Michael Render also known as, “Killer Mike.” Greenwood has raised funding from six of the largest banks including Citi, JPMorgan Chase, PNC and Truist as well as other companies including Pendulum, TTV Capital, Mastercard, and Visa.
