The company employs more than 100 people today, according to MacDonald. MacDonald said Step plans to use the fresh funds to invest further in two areas - product and people. Roboadvisor Acorns added crypto to its platform this year, and fellow startup Stack raised $2.7 million for its crypto trading and education app for teens in September. Step is one of many investing platforms that have recently waded into the cryptosphere. The company chose to launch its crypto offering before a stock investing feature, the latter of which MacDonald said is currently in the works for Step customers and will likely launch before the end of the year. For kids under 18 on the platform, parents have the ultimate say over how they allocate their money, though for Step customers over 18 there will be no restrictions or limitations on how much of their portfolio they can invest in crypto, he noted. The offering will also launch in conjunction with a financial literacy platform providing educational content for the kids and parents on Step’s app, MacDonald said. “We launched September 30, 2020, during the pandemic, so we’ve literally just crossed our two-year mark,” MacDonald said.
DESTINY RISE OF IRON MONEY EARNED SERIES
The new funding represents a substantial portion of the $500 million total Step has raised to date, most recently in a 2021 Series C equity round from investors including Coatue, Stripe and angels such as Charli D’Amelio and Jared Leto.
Step also announced today that it has borrowed $300 million in a debt financing led by Triplepoint Capital and Evolve Bank & Trust. The company just launched a crypto investing feature to the nearly 4 million users on its platform, CEO and founder CJ MacDonald told TechCrunch in an interview. And although fates have taken a turn for the worse in the equity and crypto markets in recent months, Step is doubling down on its growth plans.
Step, a digital banking service geared toward teens and young adults, is one of the many companies that set out to make money by serving those new investors. The last bull market created a new wave of investors as more and more people decided to make their first foray into the markets.
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