Family finance app Nosso raises a $2.8m Seed round co-led by Octopus Ventures and Anthemis Group

London, 28th February 2022: Nosso, a fintech helping parents invest and plan for their children’s financial futures, today announces it has raised $2.8m (£2.1m) capital. The round was led by Octopus Ventures and Anthemis with participation from additional investors including Entrepreneur First, Ventures Together, Errol Damelin, Tracy Doree and Peter Hetherington.

The financial services industry is dominated by single-user products, designed for individuals managing money on their own. And whilst this works for a certain group of people, more and more digitally native parents want a more collaborative approach to wealth management.

Nosso addresses this by offering children investment accounts that two parents can track, manage and contribute to, together. The app also goes one step further by providing each user with a unique contribution link that they can share with anyone. This allows grandparents (as well as other family and friends) to contribute directly and seamlessly with no additional paperwork or even the need to open a Nosso account. Family members can also leave messages and pictures with their contributions allowing them to pass down memories as well as wealth to future generations.

The funding announced today will allow Nosso to continue expanding its unique product offering for families. Whilst today the app allows parents to invest through tax-efficient Junior ISAs (in the child’s name) or General Investment Accounts (in the parent’s name), Nosso intends to launch a number of new financial products regularly used in family financial planning such as more flexible Junior Investment Accounts (Bare trusts).

Nosso was founded by Youssef Darwich and Sigurjon Isaksson who met in 2020 at Entrepreneur First. Prior to that, Youssef was the second employee at the digital banking service Tide and Sigurjon was an early employee at Eigen Technologies. The company has been operating in beta over the last few months, working with a group of 1000 families (95% of which are investing for their children for the very first time) to hone and build out its product offering. The app is now live and available to download on the app store and Play store.

Youssef Darwich, CEO and co-founder of Nosso says

“The main hurdle for many parents to effectively save for their children’s future is a lack of awareness about what they can do and a lack of tools that help them do that easily. The money we’ve raised today is going to give us the opportunity to change this, providing better education to families and building financial products and tools solely designed for families.’’

“We’ve been exploring how families collaborate around financial services for some time now. When we met Youssef and Sigurjon and saw their commitment to building products that would enable parents to build and manage wealth for their children with an opportunity for the wider family to participate, we knew it was a company we wanted to be part of. We’re excited about changing the way parents save for their children and how families support the younger generation’s financial health,” said Farhan Lalji, Anthemis.

“We continue to see traditional firms in this space struggle to provide financial planning and wealth management solutions that address the needs of younger existing clients and a new generation of families. Therefore, Nosso stood out to us immediately for a number of reasons: the seamlessness way it integrates into a family’s life, the manner in which it’s transformed a traditionally ‘single-player’ approach to financial planning into a ‘multi-player’, sustainable approach, and the founders’ bold vision of democratizing intergenerational wealth transfer. As a result, we’re very proud to support Youssef, Sigurjon, and the team in building out the financial partner for every family” said Tosin Agbabiaka, Investor, Octopus Ventures.

About Nosso

Nosso is a family finance app helping parents invest and plan for their children’s financial futures. The business was started in 2020 by Youssef Darwich and Sigurjon Isaksson. Prior to Nosso, Youssef was the second employee at Tide and Sigurjon was an early employee at Eigen Technologies.

The Nosso app allows parents to open up Junior stocks & shares ISAs and General Investment Accounts and select investments from a range of ETFs managed by BlackRock. They are one of the first providers to allow both parents to access and manage an account and extended family & friends to contribute directly without setting up their own account. Further to this they allow any contributor to leave messages and pictures with every contribution building a digital memory box to be handed with the child along with the funds when they turn 18. Its Junior ISA has recently. been named as one of the winners of the Boring Money Best Buy JISA award for 2022.

Nosso is also expecting to launch one of the first fully digital Junior Investment Accounts (Bare trusts) later this year. “It’s all part of our plan to give every family access to financial products that today would need a financial adviser or a high level of financial literacy to set up” By the end of 2022

Visit www.withnosso.com or email [email protected]

About Octopus Ventures

For the people and ideas that will change the world, because we believe you can build a better tomorrow by investing in it.

We can back you at every stage of your journey, from ideas on a page through to IPO. Each year we deploy more than £200 million across five areas where we see maximum potential for impact: health, fintech, deep tech, consumer and B2B software. With many years of experience and expertise investing in each of these areas, our team can help our portfolio companies scale at speed.

For us, investment is about more than money. Being truly invested is about giving time, energy and focus; working with founders to give them the best chance of success. It means a shared commitment to solving the big problems that matter.

We’ve backed the likes of BoughtByMany, Cazoo, Depop, Elvie and WaveOptics, while others have gone on to join forces with the world’s largest businesses.

We are based in London and New York with a network of partners across the U.S and Asia.

Visit octopusventures.com

About Octopus Group

Octopus is a group of innovative, entrepreneurial businesses building a brighter world for future generations. We are experts in financial services and energy, and we’re also a certified B Corp, meaning we care as much about the impact of our investments as the returns they generate. Today we manage more than £11.3* billion on behalf of retail and institutional investors. Our energy supply business is one of the fastest growing companies in the UK, reaching 2.5 million customers in just five years, and is the only supplier to be recommended by Which? four years in a row.

Octopus Energy, Octopus Giving, Octopus Moneycoach, Octopus Investments, Octopus Renewables, Octopus Real Estate, Octopus Ventures, Octopus Wealth and Seccl Technology are all part of Octopus Group. Visit octopusgroup.com.

*Includes funds under advisory mandates and the Octopus Cash service as of 31st September 2021.

About Anthemis

Anthemis Group is a global platform that cultivates change in the financial system by investing in, growing, and sustaining businesses committed to resiliency, transparency, access and equity. Founded in 2010, our deep understanding of markets and models, passion for emerging technology and values inspire everything we do. By creating fertile ground for a diverse group of startups, investors, entrepreneurs, institutions, academics, and visionaries to converge, we believe we can solve the financial systems’ most pressing challenges faster, better and for the benefit of all. Visit anthemis.com