MGMT Boston - W11, Q4 23 - OrbisPay // Happy Holidays
OrbisPay // Happy Holidays
Welcome to MGMT Boston where we try to help 710+ of you manage your awareness of top Boston startups and local up & coming operators putting in the work. Glad to have you here!
**Over the next 2 weeks I’ll be sending out a 2023 wrap up. That’s right, I’ve reached out to 40 companies and 40 operators to find out what they’ve been up to since we last chatted and I’ll wrap it all up in a tight bow for a 1H recap on 12/20 and a 2H recap on 12/27. I’m racing to get all the content sourced & organized. Wish me luck!**
TLDR:
OrbisPay - a financial wellness software platform for employers to help benefit their employees, allowing employees to access their paychecks before payday
Thanks to Vivek U. for the intro to OrbisPay
Happy Holidays - Thank you for an incredible 2023. I’ve met dozens of companies, hundreds of people, and learned so much from all of you. It has been a pleasure to produce content on your behalf
Thanks to every single one of you who has read along this year
Shout Out: Local Product leader Tony Haenn launched a side project Call Santa's Hotline, powered by ChatGPT, to let kids have interactive calls with Santa. It will tell stories, answer questions, or deliver messages for you (e.g. Don't hit your brother). My kids love it and I bet your sons/daughters/nieces/nephews/neighbors will too!
Other Resources:
MGMT Boston Operators Club - helping up & coming operators grow beyond their day to day
Dillon McDermott, Head of Sales @ Zowie - this one’s for the job hunters out there. A report from the front (more Operators Club Corner content coming in 2024!)
The Endeca Effect: Overview / Markets / People / Products / Conclusion / Bonus - Steve Papa Alumni Learnings
Q4 Startups Highlighted: Procurement Sciences AI, HYCU, Givzey, LogRocket, Stockpress, Mandrel, Nasuni, SportsVisio
Q4 Operators Highlighted: Danielle Pedra // Delegate, Natalie Cantave // Estateably, Luciana Marzilli Lord // Repsly, Andrew Dickson // SevenRooms, Lucy Driscoll // 10Beauty, Gina Guarracino // Mirakl, Alan McKinnon // Jellyfish, Angela Gatta // Enspira
Q1 Startups & Operators Highlighted / Q2 Startups & Operators Highlighted / Q3 Startups & Operators Highlighted
This week’s newsletter is sponsored by Tech Superpowers. They have operated in Boston as an IT provider on behalf of startups for the past 30 years for rapidly growing companies & premier clients like the Celtics, Accel, Matrix Partners, etc.
OrbisPay
Founders: Mo Saeed
Founding: 2019
Mission: Grant employees the freedom and flexibility they deserve in accessing their hard-earned money
Employees: 20 & 60% Local
Workplace: Remote
Stage & Capital Raised: Series A & $5-$10M Raised
Investors: Unpublished - North American Institutional Investors
Key Customers: Current Media Group, DFW Senior Care, Paychex, McDonalds
Glassdoor Rating: 4.1
Valuation (estimated): $25M+
^ this is a useless number. There is no tangible valuation until the business is sold or goes public. Don’t forget it!
OrbisPay is a financial wellness software platform for employers to help benefit their employees. Put a little more simply, OrbisPay allows employees to access their paychecks before payday. Sign me up for that!
This emerging fintech startup was founded in 2019 by Mo Saeed, a Wall Street veteran who spent a large part of his career building brokerage firms and trading technology companies focused on institutional investors like hedge funds & investment banks. But eventually it was time to do something a little different with his career.
Mo attended a conference at the Federal Reserve and learned about a different part of the financial ecosystem: financial wellness. He came to understand that it’s a big catch phrase that means different things to different people based on their stage of life and place in the American economy.
Research shows that over 100M Americans are living paycheck to paycheck (src). How can we build products and services to help make those workers more successful? After the emergence of the smartphone, there has been a tremendous tailwind to make economic access more..economical. Maybe an emerging on demand payment app could help.
In the simplest of terms, OrbisPay’s products help solve cash flow problems. For example, if you were to finish your shift at McDonalds and needed $25 to buy gas, OrbisPay acts like insurance by connecting to an employer payroll system and making funds available to an employee through an app in realtime.
It’s obviously not mandatory but it helps employees access up to 50% of their pay whenever they need it so they don’t have to go to payday loan providers. Provider is the nicest word I could come up with.. OrbisPay’s tool gives employees a little more control of their finances through ACH transfers or instant payments for a small fee to help solve their short term cash flow problems.
There’s a nice little flywheel here too. OrbisPay works with employers to sponsor this benefit for their employees. On average, employees access $500 and use the tool 13 times per year. It’s become a sought after benefit for employers like McDonald's franchisees as a recruiting tool in a stretched services economy. Their team is focused on the QSR, hospitality, and healthcare employers.
The big challenge, naturally, is supporting the capacity to offer this financial product. If they support 1M users who access $500, they’ll need to support $500M of credit and have the financial, operational, and technical capacity to handle the details. No small task!
Over the last 12 months, OrbisPay has raised the funds to continue their growth and refocused their business on a more repeatable channel partnership distribution strategy (a la Klaviyo) instead of direct sales to build out their multi sided marketplace and keep sales & marketing spend under control. Their GTM team is built here in Boston and their support & development teams are based internationally.
In the future, OrbisPay aims to broaden their customer base across more industries and expand to additional financial products to help employees save and manage their daily lives.
Operators to Know:
Pablo Andres Alvarado, Director, Partnerships - Sales Operations
Harrison J. Barnes, MBA, Director of Client Relations
Brian Vocino, Partnership Executive
Natalie Waters, Business Development Specialist
My investigative powers continue to need work so apologies to the OrbisPay team if I missed any up & coming operators internally
Key Roles To Be Hired:
More roles coming soon!
If I were interviewing here are some questions I’d ask:
What are the key 2024 growth initiatives for OrbisPay?
How has the company strategy changed as a FinTech startup over the last 12-18 months with rising interest rates?
What is the long term vision for the company?
What are the most important roles you’ll be looking to add in 2024 // teams that need the most help?
We’re optimizing for readability here so to learn more about OrbisPay you’ll have to D.Y.O.R. I’m excited to watch this team bring payment flexibility to more workers. All job holding consumers applaud your efforts. See you around town!
Happy Holidays!
What a year. 2023 was a doozy in so many (mostly positive) ways. What did I learn? Boston has a vibrant startup ecosystem and I’m so lucky to have met dozens of companies, hundreds of people, and received countless insights from all of you. We’re just scratching the surface!
There are so many people to thank but I’ll resist the urge to name individuals for fear of missing anyone (FOMA). But truly, thank you. You know who you are!
This holiday season I’m filled with gratitude for the people (and startups) who trusted me with their stories this year. I’m inspired by all of their creativity, talent, and sacrifice in service to building great companies, teams, and careers. Startups are not for everyone!
What will MGMT Boston be focused on in 2024? More great content, curated events, and most of all helping fellow startup operators thrive in Boston. Much more to come and excited to get after it on your behalf in January!
Happy Holidays, from my family to yours!
Any feedback for me? One thing you liked? One thing you didn’t? Local startups or operators to highlight? Just reply to this e-mail!
See you next week!
-Matt
Happy holidays, Matt! I am looking forward to seeing what you bring together with MGMT in 2024!