Greenlight Financial Technology Inc., the maker of an app that helps children budget, save and invest, appointed its first permanent finance chief as it prepares to go public in the next 12 to 18 months.
The Atlanta-based company, which generates revenue largely by selling monthly subscriptions to families that use its services, said
Brian Dong
took on the chief financial officer role last month. Mr. Dong most recently served as a managing director in Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s investment banking division.
Brian Dong, Greenlight’s new finance chief.
Photo:
Gina G Photography
Greenlight’s app, which can be linked to a debit card, lets parents pay their children for doing chores and set spending controls, among other services. Kids can use it to buy and sell stocks with parental approval.
The company, founded in 2014, has raised more than $550 million in venture-capital funding, including $260 million from a Series D round in April led by venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Greenlight said it has more than 4.5 million paying users in the U.S.
Greenlight said it recorded more than $100 million in annualized recurring revenue during the first nine months of 2021. The company declined to provide other revenue figures.
The company’s finances were previously managed by Controller Ashley Bachar and, occasionally, fractional CFOs, Chief Executive Tim Sheehan said. Greenlight decided to bring on a permanent CFO to help it prepare for its IPO and devise a corporate strategy to expand its business, Mr. Sheehan said.
Listing on the public markets will provide the company with greater access to capital, alongside other benefits such as building relationships with investors, Mr. Dong said. The company expects to pursue a traditional IPO or a direct listing as opposed to going public through a merger with a special-purpose acquisition company, he said.
Mr. Dong said he would focus on allocating capital to support the business’ growth, potentially through further investments in marketing, acquisitions and building out products.
“One of the things that I bring to the table is I’ve seen what it takes for companies to make that step up to the next level of growth,” Mr. Dong said, referring to his investment-banking experience. Mr. Dong said he has advised technology companies on public offerings, financing and acquisitions, with clients ranging from large-cap businesses to early-stage startups. For example, he worked on the IPOs of
Tesla Inc.
in 2010 and
Twitter Inc.
in 2013. More recently, he helped bring cryptocurrency exchange
Coinbase Global Inc.
to the public markets via a direct listing in April.
Greenlight’s app
Photo:
Greenlight Financial Technology Inc.
Greenlight will likely put money into new products, said David George, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. “The biggest investment that they can continue to make is on the product side,” he said.
A spokeswoman for Andreessen Horowitz declined to say how much the venture-capital firm contributed to Greenlight’s most recent fundraising round, which marked its first investment in the company.
Greenlight also said it named Will Yu chief operating officer and Sameera Rao chief technology officer. Mr. Yu, who joined Greenlight in October, most recently led finance and operations for RealCadre LLC, a real-estate finance company that does business as Cadre. Mr. Rao, who is set to begin his new role Dec. 16, most recently served as head of technology at digital-payments company
PayPal Holdings Inc.
Write to Mark Maurer at [email protected]
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