Advanto was officially founded more than two years ago, on 20 January 2020 to be exact. In a relatively short time, we managed to go from an idea and a prototype to becoming pioneers in an industry that, until recently, almost no one knew existed. What have we achieved so far, and where do we want to be by our next birthday?
2021 was a record year for Advanto. In May, we secured further funding from the V-Sharp Alpha fund. In a recent interview for Finmag, its investment manager Matěj Zabadal talked about what won Advanto their trust, and why they see earned wage access and the related products built on top of it as a strategic investment.
Thanks in part to our investors' support, we were able to push hard on developing our app. We built and successfully launched Advanto Go for smaller employers, built an app for iOS and Android, and moved to version 2.0 of our customer support. Alongside the core functionality in the Advanto app for employees, we are also developing an Academy section, where the well-known site Rozbité prasátko helps them build their financial literacy. In a difficult financial situation, employees can also use the app to contact debt experts from the organisation Člověk v tísni (People in Need).
What's more, Advanto is breaking records month after month in many respects. There wasn't a single month in which we didn't win a new client: last year, these included huge international companies such as Lagardère, Delivery Hero, Rohlík, and others. The number of employers therefore multiplied fourfold between December 2020 and December 2021. Hand in hand with that, the number of Advanto app users also kept growing month after month: over the course of 2021, it multiplied sevenfold in total. As a result, monthly revenue over the past year grew as much as fortyfold. In essence, revenue is doubling every month!
Results like these are the best gift we could ask for, and a real reason to celebrate. But for Advanto to keep growing at this healthy pace in the years ahead, plenty of challenges and tasks lie in wait for us. We're already working hard to make sure money reaches workers immediately after they request it. Since Advanto's founding, we've also been planning to expand our financial services and tools beyond paying out money at any time. We'd like to launch the first such new offering this very year. We also plan to bring on new investors, with whom we'd expand Advanto into Slovakia—and, further down the road, into other countries.
In short, there's plenty to celebrate. I recently spoke about this for Euro.cz as well. But now we're focused on making sure that, in a year's time, there will be even more reasons to celebrate.
Thank you to the Advanto team for their dedication, and to everyone who lets their employees withdraw part of their earned wages at any time. It makes a real difference!
Martin Fortelný
