New payroll fintech Nine25 says it has developed a system allowing gig workers to ‘stream’ their earned income on an hour-by-hour basis, as the company attempts to raise $2.55 million through an equity crowdfunding round.
Developed by Waddle co-founder Leigh Dunsford, Nine25 is a tech solution allowing employees to access a portion of their income before their scheduled payday.
Unlike pay advance services like Beforepay, which provide lump-sum access to a portion of a user’s earned income for a 5% fee, Nine25 bills itself as Australia’s first ‘salary streaming’ service.
Nine25 breaks down weekly or monthly earnings into hourly units, allowing users to access a constantly updating cash flow. Debts incurred by that spending are automatically repaid to Nine25 once their scheduled pay cheque comes through.
To keep users from blowing through their income as soon as it hits their accounts, Nine25 estimates how much money is needed for bills and regular expenses, leaving the leftover as a ‘safe spend’ amount.
Users pay around $10 a month for the privilege, with the fintech earning extra fees from the companies that integrate Nine25 with their existing payroll systems.
Speaking to SmartCompany, Dunsford said the idea for Nine25 was a natural progression from Waddle, which provides small businesses with a line of credit valued at up to 85% of their outstanding invoices.
“It’s all about allowing employees to manage that money effectively in real time, because employees are effected with the same issue that businesses had, which is a gap in cash flow,” Dunsford said.
The benefits for business, Dunsford said, come down to employee attraction and retention: offering access to income on demand can help workplaces hold on to their most essential staff, particularly in fields like hospitality, where the labour market is tight and the nature of shift work can provide erratic monthly pay cheques.
The company this week announced its integration with cloud payroll provider Keypay, a development Dunsford said will allow more businesses to offer the service to employees.
On the cards: a system allowing gig workers to access Nine25, theoretically giving riders and drivers near-instant access to their income after completing a job, instead of waiting one or two business days for funds to hit their bank account.
The requirements of building a system capable of ‘streaming’ earnings from multiple, disparate sources is “really crazy,” Dunsford said.
“There’s actually quite a lot of complexities that go into it, but we know we have solved that area.”
One potential outcome: gig workers using Nine25 could gain access to all or part of their earnings once they take a photo of each completed meal delivery and log it with the system.
“That product is basically in production at the moment and will be out early next year,” Dunsford added.
Nine25 expects up to 40 companies to offer the service to employees in the coming months, and the company intends to unveil customer numbers in the first quarter of 2023.
The fintech arrives two years after HR platform Xero acquired Waddle for $80 million.
With that lucrative buyout in the rear-view mirror, Nine25 has launched an Equitise crowdfunding round as it attempts to match the scale and success of its spiritual predecessor.
The company aims to secure $2.55 million in investment, building on seed funding contributed by Equity Seed, one of the first funds to back Waddle itself.
“If we open up and let people invest in our own platform, and if they use our platform, then they can also feel like they’re part of the success,” Dunsford said.
“And if we help them become more financially independent, they share the success of our company. They’re going to be strong advocates for our brand.”
Senior Business Journalist
Focused on the small business sector, David’s work covers the political, regulatory, and economic issues facing Australian entrepreneurs. Prior to joining SmartCompany, he was a reporter for Business Insider Australia. You can follow him on LinkedIn.
