CNote Raises $3M to Invest in Underserved Communities
Fintech company focused on advancing economic justice through community investments will use the funding to grow its team and scale its cash and fixed income offerings
CNote, a women-founded and led financial technology platform that makes it easy to invest in economic inclusion, has closed a $3 million dollar oversubscribed private funding round to extend its reach in the fast-growing socially responsible investing space. The funding round was led by ManchesterStory, with additional investments from Artemis Fund, SixThirty Ventures, H/L Ventures, Clearstone Capital, and Lateral Capital.
Since 2016, CNote has been developing technology to unlock access to investments in racial equity, economic justice and gender equity and help close the wealth gap in underserved communities across America.
“This investment is particularly timely, as CNote works to match growing investor demand for impact investments with increased capital needs from our community partners,” said CNote CEO Catherine Berman. “Our partners, community development financial institutions (CDFIs), are leading the economic response and recovery efforts for underserved communities impacted by the pandemic and our technology can help speed the flow of capital into these communities to support a faster recovery.”
CNote empowers investors to directly align their values with their investments through innovative cash and fixed income offerings. CNote’s community partners benet through access to new sources of capital that are often more flexible and mission-aligned.
CNote is building a suite of tools to make community investing seamless. CNote’s diligence and underwriting technologies reduce the time to onboard community investments while maintaining stringent underwriting standards and risk controls.
“Historically, there’s been no easy way to quickly source community investments addressing a specific cause like gender equity and the underwriting process and time to investment has been lengthy,” Berman added, “Today, investors can source, deploy and service community investments through CNote’s platform in a matter of days or weeks, not months, and this funding round allows us to continue reducing the barriers to investing in communities across America.”
Over the last 18 months, CNote has earned recognition as an Emerging Impact Manager in the 2020 Impact Assets 50 List and as the “Best Alternative Investments Platform” by Finovate 2020. Since CNote’s inception, investors have helped create more than 3,000 jobs across America and CNote has deployed over 50% of investor capital in BIPOC communities. In October of 2020, Mastercard expanded its partnership with CNote and made a $20 million-dollar commitment into CNote’s cash management solution, the Promise Account. In response to the pandemic, CNote launched the Rapid Response Fund to provide flexible long-term, low-cost capital to help communities recover.
About CNote
CNote is a women-led impact investment platform that uses technology to unlock diversified and proven community investments to generate economic mobility and financial inclusion. Every dollar invested on CNote’s platform funds small businesses owned by women and people of color, affordable housing, and economic development in financially underserved communities across America. With the mission of closing the wealth gap, CNote’s customizable products allow anyone to generate social and economic returns by investing in the causes and communities they care about.
Note to Readers – Read the article from Yuliya Tarasava, Co-Founder and COO of CNote on “How Impact Investing Can Change Our Relationship with Money” that she wrote for GreenMoney in 2019.