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NerdWallet has raised $69.0M across 2 funding rounds.
Key people at NerdWallet.
NerdWallet was founded in 2009 by Jake Gibson (COO, Co-founder).
NerdWallet has raised $69.0M in total across 2 funding rounds.
NerdWallet provides an online platform enabling individuals to make informed financial decisions. It aggregates and analyzes a range of financial products, including credit cards, loans, mortgages, and investment accounts. The platform offers personalized recommendations and insights, using data analysis to simplify complex financial choices for its users.
Founded in August 2009 by Tim Chen and Jacob Gibson, NerdWallet emerged from a market need for unbiased personal finance information. The co-founders noted a lack of transparent guidance, particularly for credit cards, aiming to build a resource where consumers could compare and understand financial products.
The platform serves individuals seeking clarity and confidence in their financial lives. NerdWallet's vision is to be a trusted guide, helping consumers navigate critical financial milestones. It strives to improve financial literacy and enable users to make optimal decisions, fostering financial health and prosperity.
Key people at NerdWallet.
NerdWallet is a personal finance technology platform that provides consumers and small businesses with unbiased tools to compare financial products like credit cards, mortgages, personal loans, insurance, and more, while offering guidance on budgeting, investing, and taxes.[1][3][5] It solves the problem of opaque, sales-driven financial advice by delivering clear, shoppable comparisons and personalized recommendations, serving millions of users primarily in the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Australia.[1][3][4] The company has demonstrated strong growth momentum, evolving from $75 in 2009 revenue to $547 million in 2023, with nearly 23 million monthly users, over 700 employees, and a public listing (NASDAQ: NRDS) in 2021 that valued it at around $800 million market cap.[1][2][3][4]
NerdWallet was founded in 2009 by Tim Chen and Jake Gibson, childhood friends who reconnected after college—Chen with an economics degree from Stanford and Wall Street experience, Gibson with a math degree from MIT and similar finance background.[1][2][4][5] The idea emerged when Chen's sister asked for help picking a credit card with low foreign transaction fees; frustrated by biased online info, Chen built a spreadsheet comparing options, which spread organically and revealed a market gap for trustworthy advice.[1][4] Bootstrapped with just $500-$800 from Chen's apartment in Manhattan (later moving to San Francisco), it launched as "Credit Card Watch" and generated only $75 in year-one revenue with under 300 users.[1][2][4]
Early traction was slow—$65,000 revenue in 2010—but pivoted to broader financial tools by 2010, achieving profitability in 2015 after $105-$159 million in funding from investors like Institutional Venture Partners.[1][2][3] Key milestones include acquisitions like ValuePenguin (2017), Fundera (2020), and international expansion via Know Your Money (2016), culminating in a 2021 IPO at $18 per share.[1][2]
NerdWallet rides the fintech democratization wave, empowering everyday users amid rising financial complexity from inflation, debt, and digital banking shifts.[3][4] Its timing capitalized on post-2008 distrust of banks and the smartphone era, filling gaps left by opaque advisors with data-driven neutrality—much like Google for finance.[1][2][4] Market forces like regulatory pushes for transparency (e.g., consumer protection laws) and AI-enhanced personalization favor its model, while competitors like Chime (neobanking) or Engine (embedded finance) focus narrower.[3] It influences the ecosystem by normalizing unbiased advice, pressuring incumbents to improve UX and fostering a "shopability" standard in fintech.[4]
NerdWallet's trajectory points to deeper AI integration for hyper-personalized advice and SMB expansion, leveraging its 39+ million monthly visits and $500M+ revenue base to capture growing demand in international markets and embedded finance.[1][2][3] Trends like open banking, economic volatility, and Gen Z's digital-native habits will accelerate growth, potentially evolving it into a full financial OS amid competition from neobanks. As a public tech leader born from a simple spreadsheet, NerdWallet remains poised to bring clarity to an increasingly complex financial world.[4][5]
NerdWallet has raised $69.0M across 2 funding rounds. Most recently, it raised $5.0M Series A in October 2015.
| Date | Round | Lead Investors | Other Investors | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 1, 2015 | $5M Series A | — | — | Announced |
| May 1, 2015 | $64M Series A | — | Bain Capital Ventures, Bling Capital, Byers Capital, Contour Venture Partners, Craft Ventures, Fifth Wall, First Round Capital, Founders Fund, Fuel Capital, Karim Faris, M.g. Siegler, Hustle Fund, Index Ventures, IVP, Kleiner Perkins, LAUNCH, Left Lane Capital, Liquid 2 Ventures, LUV Ventures, Pillar VC, Pioneer Fund, RRE Ventures, Sapphire Ventures, Seven Seven SIX, Sound Ventures, Unanimous Capital, Venrock, Y Combinator, Aaron Levie, Adam Jackson, Charlie Cheever, David Petersen, Jared Leto, MG Siegler, Pete Cashmore, Sohail Prasad | Announced |
NerdWallet was founded in 2009 by Jake Gibson (COO, Co-founder).
NerdWallet has raised $69.0M in total across 2 funding rounds.
NerdWallet's investors include Bain Capital Ventures, Bling Capital, Byers Capital, Contour Venture Partners, Craft Ventures, Fifth Wall, First Round Capital, Founders Fund, Fuel Capital, Karim Faris, M.G. Siegler, Hustle Fund.
