Founded in 2020, Daylight is the first digital banking platform in the U.S. specifically designed for and by the LGBTQIA+ community. Now the company has added $15M in funding to expand its services to support LGBTQ+ people looking to start and grow their families. This latest round of funding was led by Anthemis Group with participation from CMFG Ventures, Kapor Capital, Citi Ventures, and Gaingels.
While 3.8m LGBTQ+ millennials are planning to expand their family within the next 5 years, queer people in the United States face significant logistical, legal, and financial barriers to doing so. In addition to its first offering, Daylight Money, which provides consumer financial and payment services to thousands of LGBTQ+ people, the company will launch a new subscription service called Daylight Grow – a financial and family planning product designed specifically for queer families.
“Family creation is a major life event for queer people and the challenges we face are increasingly more complex than those for non-LGBTQ people. Daylight Grow will help queer people navigate through the complex legal and financial challenges involved, making it faster and easier to start a family and unlocking critical intergenerational wealth for our community,” said Billie Simmons, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Daylight.
When the product officially launches in early 2023, Daylight Grow subscribers will receive:
- A personalized family creation plan covering financial, legal, and logistical milestones tailored to their state and needs
- Family planning Concierges to provide financial advice and logistical support
- A family-building marketplace with vetted family attorney networks, and IVF and surrogacy clinics in their area
- Members-only digital community platform and in-person financial and fertility education events
- Access to family-building loans
To level the playing field, the company will offer hundreds of free subscriptions to low-income, marginalized families in states where LGBTQ+ rights are under significant legal attack.
“At Daylight, our mission has always been to break down the financial barriers that hold LGBTQ+ people back. This new funding allows us to build vital new services that will help put family building within reach for many,” said Rob Curtis, Co-Founder and CEO of Daylight. “With LGBTQ+ marriage and parental rights again under siege, protecting equality is vital, but allowing discrimination toward LGBTQ+ people in the name of religious freedom reinforces our status as second class citizens. In this post-Dobbs world, Daylight’s commitment to supporting queer families has never been more necessary.”
“We believe the future of banking is tailored financial products and services, delivered in the context of when and where they are needed most,” said Vinay Singh, Managing Director at Anthemis Group, who joins Daylight’s board. “We are excited to support Daylight as they do exactly that for the queer and trans community, in a rapidly expanding family creation market that is urgently calling for better financial solutions.”
