Willa

Willa is on a mission to power the future of work and become the financial OS for creators. The “creator economy” is undergoing significant growth. Just last year, the freelance workforce, some 60m people in the U.S., contributed $1.3t to the U.S. economy. The industry is growing at a pace on track to surpass traditional employment by 2027. However, the biggest pain point for creators is getting paid late. When brands and platforms pay after a 30, 60, or 90 day delay, the creator can face an acute cash flow problem they didn’t expect, which Willa aims to address.

Co-founders Kristofer, Aron, Peter, and Stefan embarked on this journey as the founding growth team at Spotify and the former founders of a marketing platform for Forbes 500 companies, Relatable. They have assembled a team uniquely positioned to re-engineer the payment problem for creators and freelancers, while taking a page from Spotify’s growth playbook to scale the platform in a sustainable and user-first way.

After being introduced to the Willa team via a trusted founder at Copenhagen Fintech, we were continually impressed with the passion and innovative thinking the founders had around abstracting financial services for the end user. The team’s first product allows agencies to pay on their own terms, while influencers can receive payment of their invoice in 30 seconds or less for a small fee.

Supported by tailwinds of increased adoption for freelance work and digital banking, Willa launched its app in September 2020, and had over 150K freelancers on the waitlist less than a year after its launch. Over time, we believe this product is the tip of the spear to a holistic financial services offering for this emerging segment of the economy.

In July 2021 Willa raised their $18m Series A financing led by FinTech Collective, with participation from Entrée Capital and EQT Ventures.

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