Clair provides embedded Earned Wage Access (EWA) that lets employees advance earned wages with bank‑issued, no‑interest advances originating from Pathward, N.A. Its product integrates with payroll and human capital management platforms to offer a three‑click, in‑app experience for employees and employers at no cost to employers. Clair reports availability at over 29,000 business locations across 29 industries and facilitates millions of dollars in advances every month; in its Gusto integration 43% of customers take their first advance within two minutes. The company partners with platforms such as Gusto and TriNet and aims to expand distribution through payroll and workforce management providers, which it describes as "workforce super apps," to reach tens of millions of U.S. employees. Clair has raised $23.2M in a Series B and reports $68.7M in total equity funding to date from investors including Upfront Ventures, Thrive Capital, Kairos HQ, and Founder Collective. The Series B is intended to let Clair double down on its product and go‑to‑market expansion while leveraging its national bank partnership to address regulatory and compliance needs. Clair provides on-demand, bank-backed earned-wage advances and instant post-shift pay access through integrations with employers, payroll providers and workforce-management systems. The company’s app also offers savings, check printing and free ATM withdrawals and is used alongside employers’ existing systems. Clair currently works with over 10,000 employers, workforce-management systems and payroll providers and serves more than 50,000 workers. Its core product routes wage advances through partner bank Pathward, which holds FDIC-insured accounts and issues the micro-loans that fund advances. Clair is positioning employer-facing products, including a new Clair for Employers benefits package with a Clair Debit Mastercard offering 3% cash back on gas and groceries. The company is exploring additional offerings such as a dynamic 401(k) and health savings accounts as part of a broader vision to build banking services for the workforce. Clair is a New York City–based fintech that provides free instant earned-wage advances by integrating with HR and payroll systems. It serves both full-time employees and gig workers via online and mobile apps and offers spending and savings accounts, a debit card (including a virtual in-app card), and financial-planning tools. Clair uses its own capital to fund advances and reduces risk by directly accessing payroll data. Its monetization strategy is to convert users into a digital bank, earning interchange fees, and it pays HR and workforce-management platforms to integrate and drive recurring revenue. The company was founded in late 2019 by CEO Nico Simko, COO Alex Kostecki and CPO Erich Nussbaumer and has a roughly 25-person team with about half based in New York. With the new funding, Clair plans to expand product offerings into areas like healthcare and debt repayment. Clair is a New York–based social-impact fintech that embeds instant-pay financial services into workforce management, payroll and gig platforms. Workers who choose Clair as their direct deposit receive a digital bank account and a Clair debit card, enabling free advances on a portion of their earned wages that are deducted at the next payday. Clair generates revenue via debit card interchange fees paid by merchants where the cards are accepted, and banking services are provided by Synapse’s partners, Member FDIC. The company offers turnkey products and APIs to payroll and workforce-management providers to enable instant payments to hourly and gig workers. Clair targets roughly 82 million hourly workers and 57 million gig workers and positions instant pay as a way to reduce reliance on high-interest payday loans. The startup plans additional savings features in its product pipeline and says it aims to help users move off living paycheck-to-paycheck over time, according to CEO and co-founder Nico Simko.

Total raised

$68M

Funding rounds

4

Latest round

Series B

Latest activity

May 2025