In 2022, Hussein Fazal flew 200 of his employees to Las Vegas to cash a $200 check at a payday loan shop. He then asked them to buy a week of groceries for a family on what was left so they could understand their customers\u2019 experience. His company, Super.com was worth approximately $700 million at the time.<\/p>\n
Super.com, is now a $1.2 billion company with around 300 employees. The Toronto-founded savings app for everyday Americans, raised $65 million Series D led by TPG<\/a>, Fortune learned exclusively. The raise comes as the company surpasses $200 million in net revenue, grew over 50%<\/a> year-over-year, and turned profitable.<\/p>\n The app functions like a Costco membership crossed with a financial services toolkit. For a $15 monthly fee, members get up to 40% off hotels, cashback on everyday purchases, prescription discounts, cash advances when they\u2019re short, and credit-building tools. The company\u2019s <\/a>Super+ membership is approaching one million members and has helped customers put over $1 billion back in their pockets.<\/p>\n Premium credit card rewards programs<\/a>\u2014the Amex Platinums, the Chase Sapphire Reserves\u2014are designed for high earners with high credit scores. All the while, lower-income consumers using debit or secured cards subsidize those rewards<\/a> without seeing any of them. Fazal built Super+ to flip that. \u201cThere are 100 to 150 million Americans in that everyday American category, under $100,000 household income, and we\u2019re trying to do our best to help them save,\u201d he told me.<\/p>\n The company started as SnapTravel in 2016<\/a>, a hotel-booking bot, before COVID nearly killed it<\/a>. Fazal survived, and in doing so, identified his true customer base: people booking two-star hotels where his $10 discount was the difference between taking the trip or not, mostly paying with debit because they couldn\u2019t get a credit card.\u00a0<\/p>\n Harley Finkelstein, Shopify\u2019s president, joined as board observer and put in his own personal money: \u201cSuper.com is doing something that\u2019s almost the opposite of Amazon<\/a> Prime,\u201d Finkelstein told me. \u201cAmazon made spending frictionless for people with means. Super.com is making savings frictionless for the 100 million Americans living paycheck to paycheck.\u201d He called Fazal\u2019s \u201cgive-a-shit quotient\u201d one of the highest of any founder he\u2019d ever met.<\/p>\n The round also brings Ryan Fujiu, ex-CPO of Bird and former head of driver growth at Uber<\/a>, to lead product, and Michele Lee, former general counsel at Pinterest<\/a>, as GC. And Super.com is NASCAR\u2019s official savings partner<\/a>, putting Super.com in front of 70 million fans who look a lot like the customer Fazal described to me from a tent at the Michigan Speedway: a guy who just needed a hotel for $60, found one, booked it on the spot, and went to tell his friends.<\/p>\n The personal finance apps market<\/a> is projected to balloon from $31.7 billion to $173.6 billion by 2035, and the competition is intensifying: Rakuten, Capital One<\/a> Shopping, and now-public Chime<\/a> all want the same wallet share. Fazal is aiming exceptionally high. \u201cI\u2019d love every American to have Amazon Prime, Costco, and Super+ as the essential memberships that help them save time and money,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n VENTURE DEALS<\/p>\n – Even<\/b> Realities<\/b><\/a>, a Shenzhen, China-based developer of smart glasses, raised $150 million in pre-Series B funding. Meituan<\/b> and Tencent<\/b> led the round.<\/p>\n – Bespoke<\/b> Labs<\/b><\/a>, a Mountain View, Calif.-based AI agent training platform, raised $40 million across seed and Series A rounds from Wing<\/b> VC<\/b>, Mayfield<\/b>, The House Fund<\/b>, and others.<\/p>\n – Katalyze<\/b> AI<\/b><\/a>, a San Francisco-based agentic operating system for pharmaceutical manufacturing and quality operations, raised $10.5 million in seed funding. Bonfire<\/b> Ventures<\/b> led the round and was joined by Inovia<\/b> Capital<\/b>, Ripple<\/b> Ventures<\/b>, Alumni<\/b> Ventures<\/b>, and angel investors.<\/p>\n – Worldmodeldata<\/b><\/a>, a Cambridge, U.K.-based company building a database of video game-generated training data for AI, raised \u00a37 million ($9.4 million) in seed funding. Iona<\/b> Star<\/b> Capital<\/b> led the round.\u00a0<\/p>\n – TaiSan<\/b><\/a>, a Cambridge, U.K.-based developer of sodium-ion batteries for applications like electric bikes and scooters, raised \u00a34.7 million ($6.3 million) in funding. EOS<\/b> Advisory<\/b> and Mercia<\/b> Ventures<\/b> led the round and were joined by AFI<\/b> Ventures<\/b>, EverQuest<\/b> Capital<\/b> Partners<\/b>, and others.<\/p>\n PRIVATE EQUITY<\/p>\n – Jenson<\/b> Hughes<\/b>, a portfolio company of Gryphon<\/b> Investors<\/b>, acquired HiLT<\/b><\/a>, a Singapore-based fire protection engineering firm. Financial terms were not disclosed.<\/p>\n EXITS<\/p>\n – Novartis<\/b> agreed to acquire Myricx<\/b> Bio<\/b><\/a>, a London, U.K.-based drug discovery company focused on patients with cancer, from Sofinnova<\/b> Partners<\/b>, for up to $1.5 billion.<\/p>\n – Blackstone<\/b> Energy Transition<\/b> Partners<\/b> agreed to acquire Dresser<\/b> Utility<\/b> Solutions<\/b><\/a>, a Houston, Texas-based provider of mission-critical natural gas and water measurement, control and infrastructure equipment solutions, from First<\/b> Reserve<\/b>. Financial terms were not disclosed.<\/p>\n IPOs<\/p>\n