T. Rowe Price Leads $40 Million Debt Round for Investing App Stash

Liza Landsman

Baltimore-based investing giant T. Rowe Price has led a $40 million debt round for Stash, which operates an investing app, with participation from California’s Goodwater Capital and New York’s Union Square Ventures.

According to TechCrunch, the funding round leveraged a convertible note, giving the New York-based startup the ability to raise debt without a fresh valuation. Stash was valued at $1.4 billion when it last raised venture funds in 2021. So far, it has raised over $500 million from investors, including debt.

2 Million Actives

Founded in 2015 by Wall Street professionals Brandon Krieg and Ed Robinson, Stash lets people invest in fractional shares as low as one cent, promoting affordable investing. Its main competitors are Acorns and Robinhood. Stash claims 2 million active subscribers, who have annual household incomes of about $58,000.

Stash also announced the appointment of Amy Butte, who as chief financial officer led the New York Stock Exchange to an initial public offering, as its independent audit chair. Butte holds a board seat at Bain Capital Specialty Finance and DigitalOcean, and has previously served on the boards of BNP Paribas USA and Fidelity Strategic Advisers Funds.

“The addition of Amy, who is amongst the most accomplished leaders in the financial services space, plus a new round of financing from marquee investors, are clear indicators of the strength of Stash’s business. It also signals our widely ambitious future,” said CEO Liza Landsman, a former BlackRock and Citi executive who continues to be a partner at the venture firm NEA.

‘Profitability in Sight’

“We will move even faster to scale while committing to increasing levels of rigor and transparency — all in service of supporting our millions of customers. Profitability, and the flexibility it provides, is within reach,” said Landsman, who took the helm of the startup in February. Over the past year, Stash surpassed $100 million in revenue and expects to be profitable in 2024.

Over the past year, Stash has named a chief technology officer, Chien-Liang Chou, and built and launched a custom core banking system. Chou previously worked at banking app Dave and Salesforce.

Founded in 1937, T. Rowe Price has over $1.4 trillion in assets under management and services investors in 52 countries. It has made over 300 portfolio investments and exited over 100. In 2022, it showed a significant focus on life sciences, investing in startups such as Senti, Convoy, Sionna Therapeutics, Tessera Therapeutics and Cross River.