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Good Money
Good Money launched in 2019 as a mobile-first banking alternative with an unusual charter: it is organized as a crowdfunded public benefit corporation,...
Good Money
Good Money launched in 2019 as a mobile-first banking alternative with an unusual charter: it is organized as a crowdfunded public benefit corporation, not a traditional C-corp, and equity is allocated to customers at no cost. Gunnar Lovelace, who previously co-founded the organic food marketplace Thrive Market, raised successive venture rounds from investors including Third Prime Capital and The One Way Ventures, before opening a direct-to-consumer equity crowdfunding round that drew tens of thousands of non-accredited participants. The firm sets up competing structural claims on user loyalty — customers own the bank, and the bank's profitability is tied to expanding that ownership base rather than extracting rent from overdraft and interchange fees alone. The platform offers checking accounts and debit cards through an FDIC-insured banking partner, emphasizing fee transparency and a pledge to invest deposits in socially responsible assets rather than fossil fuels, private prisons, or weapons manufacturing. Early-stage venture capital funded the build-out, but the ongoing customer acquisition model blends fintech growth tactics with cooperative governance — a hybrid that places Good Money alongside consumer banking entrants like Aspiration and Ando Money that distinguish themselves less by technology than by the legal and financial architecture of the firm. The native mobile app handles standard digital banking functions while tracking individual users' ownership stakes, making the equity component visible and persistent in the customer experience. Lovelace originally conceived Good Money after observing structural concentration in consumer banking following the 2008 crisis, when large incumbents acquired smaller community banks and raised fees. The firm raised roughly $30 million across early funding rounds (per public record) and attracted a waitlist of approximately 60,000 users before its public launch. In 2021, Good Money raised an equity crowdfunding round via StartEngine that allowed non-accredited investors to purchase shares, consistent with the cooperative ownership thesis. The company has not publicly disclosed headcount, total deposits, or assets under custody in its most recent filings. Good Money's structural differentiator is its simultaneous operation as a regulated fintech, a public benefit corporation, and a crowdfunded cooperative. Most challenger banks use standard Delaware C-corp structures and eventually face pressure to maximize shareholder value at customers' expense. By making customers into shareholders through free equity grants and public crowdfunding rounds, the company constructs a governance model where retail depositors and equity holders are largely the same party — an architecture that, if it scales, limits the scope for predatory fee extraction without requiring ongoing regulatory pressure to keep it in check.
General information
Firm type
Asset Manager
Year founded
—
AUM
Undisclosed
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
—
Corporate office
United States
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
How does Good Money's cooperative structure differ from a standard bank?
Good Money is a public benefit corporation, not a traditional bank or standard Delaware C-corp. Customers receive equity in the company at no cost, meaning the depositor base and the shareholder base are intentionally overlapping. This legal architecture creates structural pressure against extracting profit through hidden fees because the same people paying those fees would own the shares being diluted to cover them. Standard banks, by contrast, frequently face a direct tension between maximizing shareholder returns and minimizing customer costs.
Does Good Money lend out customer deposits directly?
Good Money partners with an FDIC-insured chartered bank to hold deposits, meaning standard deposit insurance applies up to applicable limits. The firm commits to investing those deposits in mission-aligned assets, explicitly avoiding fossil fuel financing, private prison lending, and weapons manufacturing. Direct lending decisions are managed through the partner bank's balance sheet rather than Good Money operating its own lending arm, but the firm sets the mandate for how those deposits are deployed.
What happened to the equity crowdfunding round?
Good Money ran at least one equity crowdfunding raise on StartEngine, enabling non-accredited investors to purchase shares in the company. This was separate from the venture rounds led by institutional investors like Third Prime Capital and The One Way Ventures, and was designed to broaden ownership beyond accredited angels and venture funds. The firm has not publicly disclosed the total amount raised through crowdfunding, but the campaign was consistent with its thesis that ownership should be distributed across customers and small-dollar backers.
Who leads investment and product decisions at Good Money?
Gunnar Lovelace, the founder and CEO, has historically been the primary decision-maker on product and strategy. Lovelace previously co-founded Thrive Market, a subscription-based organic foods marketplace that raised venture funding and built a significant consumer membership base before Good Money. No separate CIO or investment committee structure has been publicly detailed, which is consistent with a venture-backed fintech where strategy remains highly centralized around the founding team.
Is Good Money still actively operating?
Public communications from the company and its executives have been sparse since its launch period, and no recent funding rounds, partnership announcements, or regulatory filings have been widely reported. The core mobile application and banking infrastructure may remain operational through the partner bank relationship, but the company has not disclosed current user counts, deposit volumes, or revenue metrics. Absent recent press or investor updates, the operational status is not independently confirmed.
How does Good Money make money?
The primary revenue model mirrors other digital banking platforms: interchange fees from debit card transactions and potential net interest margin from deposits held at the partner bank. Good Money's public-benefit status and customer-equity program are designed to return excess margin to users rather than accumulating retained earnings for private shareholders. The exact unit economics and whether the business has reached break-even or profitability have not been publicly disclosed.
Does Good Money have any relationship to Thrive Market?
There is no disclosed corporate or operational relationship between Good Money and Thrive Market beyond the shared founder, Gunnar Lovelace. Thrive Market is a membership-based organic foods e-commerce platform, while Good Money is a digital banking cooperative — they operate in entirely separate industries with distinct investor bases. The connection is biographical, not structural.
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