Chime is Public!
Very Few Bets Return This Well. Even Fewer Feel This Good.
🎉💚 Chime went public this morning.💚🎉
The elation, the commitment to the mission, and the genuine love among this community was palpable on that floor today. I’ve really been trying to be present and take in this surreal moment.
And yet, my mind keeps wandering back to the moments that preceded my leading Chime’s 2016 Series A round.
As is common for our team at Acrew, I had done my thesis work. The premise was: millennials would adopt digital-first financial products. That belief was grounded in three converging shifts: consumer distrust in legacy institutions as a result of the Global Financial Crisis, the ubiquity of mobile as a new platform, and the coming of age of my own generation — the first quasi-digital-natives.
But my real conviction was in Chris and in Ryan.
Chris Britt (CEO & Co-founder, Chime), Lauren Kolodny (Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Acrew) and Ryan King (Co-founder) celebrate Chime’s Opening Bell Ceremony at Nasdaq in NYC
Chris didn’t come to this problem space as an outsider or opportunist. He showed up with lived experience for the problems — a deep understanding of what this population actually needed — and the financial services expertise to build a real business to solve those problems. Ryan brought the technical rigor, product creativity, and sheer will to build a best in class product experience — in spite of the constraints of legacy financial products. They were the ultimate complimentary team. Humble, high integrity and motivated by so much more than their own financial success.
And, yet somehow, the round I led for Chime was not what you would call a “hot VC round.”
It seemed that most investors didn’t believe you could build a venture-backed financial services business serving everyday Americans — the 70% of the population who live paycheck to paycheck. Skeptics would say “You can’t serve this population profitability without being predatory.” Or: “People won’t put enough of their spend on debit cards.” Or: “Consumers won’t trust a bank they can’t walk into.”
Silicon Valley not only underestimated Chime. It underestimated everyday Americans.
Thankfully, Chris and Ryan had the clarity — and the resilience — to prove it.
Their pitch was simple: forget exorbitant hidden fees, forget predatory credit traps. Chime would offer their otherwise-underbanked members a quality banking experience, become their primary banking relationship, and earn a fee every time a member swiped their debit card. At scale, those pennies could become billions.
And it worked.
Get paid two days early. SpotMe. MyPay. Each new feature was grounded in members’ real financial stress points, executed with empathy and discipline. And always through the lens of what would serve members in the long run — not just a product, a relationship.
The result?
A generational company built off of aligning its business with the financial well being of its members.
For a long time now, the margins have looked like that of a best in class SaaS business, customer loyalty off the charts — and the mission remains front and center.
But this IPO isn’t just a milestone for one company. It’s a validation — that building for the financial health of everyday people is not only possible, it’s durable, scalable, and profitable.
Chris and Ryan, I get a lot of credit for betting on you. But, obviously, the truth is that we bet on each other. Thanks for letting a Principal at a brand new fund lead your 2016 Series A.
Very few bets return this well. Even fewer feel this good.
💚💚💚
P.S. The best thing I ever did for Chime wasn’t the round I led. The best thing I ever did for Chime was, as a brand new board member, introducing Matt Newcomb to Chris. I’ve loved being on this journey with Matt from our shared beginning. But, today, 9 years later, watching Matt be the CFO to take this company public overwhelms me with a joy I could never have imagined. (Shout to Lily Lyman and Brown University for bringing us together.)
Special thank you to all of the Chimers — past and present — who have made this possible. Including: Jennifer Kuperman, Madhu Mathukumar, Melissa Alvarado, Mark Troughton, Vineet Mehra, Zach Smith. Grateful for my friends and co-investors: Kirsten Green, Satya Patel, James M. P. Feuille, Sauraubh Gupta, Shawn Carolan.
And more gratitude… Aaron Plante, Adam Frankel, Amine Asmerom, Apple Palarca, Barkha Saxena, Ben Savage, Brian Mullins, Carl Cummings, Cynt Marshall, David Pearce, Denis Barrier, Dennis Yang, Emmalyn Shaw, Ivo Parashkevov, Jackie Chang, Janelle Sallenave, Jason Lee, Jay Parekh, Jeff Currier, Jimmy Dunne III, Kate Karas, Kendra Boccelli, Paul Stamas, Rekha Venkatakrishnan, Sarah Wagener, Simon Wu, Sofia Fatakhova, Sue Decker, Tim Connors, Xiongwen Rui…so many more.
