Debt Management Start-Up Tally to Expand Beyond Credit Card Service in 2019
*By Tanaya Macheel*
Tally is on track to expand its product offering in 2019, Cheddar has learned.
The automated debt management start-up, which launched in October 2017 and [raised $25 million](https://cheddar.com/videos/credit-card-payoff-app-tally-raises-25-million) in Series B funding in July, is now managing about $250 million in credit card debt and has processed more than $100 million in payments, CEO and founder Jason Brown told Cheddar Monday.
“With 2019 ahead of us, we’re laying the foundation for being able to automate beyond credit card debt,” Brown said, potentially referring to savings and investing, or other kinds of debt like student and auto loans.
With its existing app, the San Francisco-based company aims to remove the pain of managing credit card payments by letting users link their credit cards ー and paying off those credit cards on behalf of their users.
Once users qualify, Tally offers a low-rate line of credit that users pay monthly; that payment covers the minimums on each linked credit card.
Since July, Tally has tripled its headcount, launched its app for Android devices, and released a “robo-advisor for debt” that considers users’ current spending, income, debt to date, and helps them structure a monthly payment plan in order to be debt-free by the date they've chosen.
“Most people think about investing, setting a date for when you’ll retire,” Brown said. “Only about 14 percent of Americans actively buy stocks whereas 44 percent of Americans have credit card debt. We built a product that allows you to set a goal for when you’re going to be debt free.”
Tally currently has about 75 employees, half of whom are engineering and product personnel. The company plans to have 100 employees by the first quarter of 2019.
It also plans to expand its current prime offering. Tally is only available to creditworthy users (those with at least a 660 credit score).
With fintech, traditional financial institutions are doing more financial work for consumers in an “invisible and ambient” way as their brands lose customer interaction to start-ups like Tally, which are employing artificial intelligence to optimize each financial task and separating the benefits of financial responsibilities from the burden.
“Those fintechs will be effectively doing business on the customer’s behalf with the broader financial industry,” Brown said.
“Most banks are organized by product categories, things that you kind of pick off the shelf as a customer. We think about things in terms of jobs you need done. It’s more around goals and objectives as a customer — and the service might use multiple products on your behalf without you even knowing what products are being utilized to get you to your goal.”
Over the weekend, Russia fired a missile at one of its own satellites, triggering an explosion that launched thousands of pieces of shrapnel through space and forced the astronauts aboard the International Space Station to shelter in place. Senior Writer from Space.com Chelsea 'Foxanne' Gohd, joined Cheddar to discuss more.
Twitter announced a partnership with S&P Dow Jones Indices on Thursday to build the S&P 500 Sentiment Index for monitoring the performance of 200 S&P members based on tweets with company $cashtags. Jared Podnos, strategic market development lead at Twitter, and Peter Roffman, global head of innovation and strategy at S&P Dow Jones Indices, joined Cheddar to provide some background on the partnership and to explain exactly how monitoring companies through public opinion will work. "[The S&P] taps into this conversation. They understand the real-time conversation as well as the historical trends, and then we can analyze that and understand the consumer sentiment and really build these innovative products around that conversation," Podnos added.
Cognitive healthcare platform BrainCheck recently raised $10 million in a Series B round. The platform offers neurologists a new way to detect and care for brain disorders like Alzeheimer's, and brain injuries like concussions. BrainCheck CEO Yael Katz joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Jean-Denis Mariani, the chief digital officer at COTY, the parent company for major brands like Bottega Veneta, Burberry, and Kylie Skin, joined Cheddar to talk about the impact of the pandemic on the beauty industry and the rapid shift to e-commerce sales. "There is no digital strategy anymore, only strategy in a digital world," he said. Mariani also talked about personalized makeup selection for consumers as the beauty sector begins to incorporate technology like artificial intelligence.
Amid an ongoing global semiconductor chip shortage, American automaker Ford has decided to open up supply chains of its own. Karl Brauer, an executive analyst at iSeeCars.com, joined Cheddar to discuss Ford's new partnership with multinational semiconductor maker GlobalFoundries to build those chips domestically. Brauer praised Ford for the move both for ongoing supply woes and the future of automobile manufacturing. "It's not just the supply chain," he said. "It's not just about getting chips, but maybe getting chips that are more customized and specific to your needs."
Gerald Johnson, Executive VP, Global Manufacturing and Sustainability at General Motors, joins Cheddar News to break down what Factory ZERO signifies for GM's all-electric future and why the auto manufacturer will be a leader in the growing EV industry.
Airlines are gearing up for a busy winter season as they continue to rebound from the pandemic. But jet fuel prices combined with the ongoing labor shortage could put a damper on those holiday gains. Christian Vernet, president of La Compagnie, the only all business class airline in the world, joined Cheddar for an update on the state of the airline industry and how it's dealing with the surge in demand after the U.S. reopened its border to international visitors.
Cadillac is launching its first ever all-electric vehicle. The 2023 Lyriq boasts an estimated 300 mile range, $60,000 dollar starting price, a 33-inch advanced LED display, among many other features. The rollout comes as Cadillac has posted record third quarter global sales and plans to become all-electric by 2030. Rory Harvey, vice president of Cadillac, joined Cheddar to discuss what drivers can expect from the Lyriq, and how the brand has been able to deal with the ongoing chip shortage.
Spotify has officially made its lyrics feature available to users globally after piloting the program in various countries. Now, users can read the lyrics while listening to their favorite songs on th app.
