Millennial-friendly personal-finance platform MoneyLion announced plans Friday to go public via a deal with special purpose acquisition company Fusion Acquisition Corp. (NYSE:FUSE). The merger will give MoneyLion a $2.9B equity value.
“MoneyLion is a digital financial platform on a mission to rewire a broken banking system that applies a one-size-fits-all approach to personal finance,” MoneyLion co-founder and CEO Dee Choubey said in announcing the deal. “A public listing enhances our ability to scale more quickly and continue to innovate so that we can help more people take control of their finances and achieve their life goals.”
Fusion founder and CEO John James said the platform is “at the perfect high-growth inflection point that makes accessing public markets a logical next step. … We believe in today's market, there are limited opportunities to invest in high-growth businesses built for profitability like MoneyLion. We look forward to partnering with the company's highly experienced team of technologists and financial-product experts to accelerate growth post-merger.”
Founded in 2013, MoneyLion offers a suite of consumer financial tools like RoarMoney, a mobile-banking app that enables customers to get paid up to two days early and manage day-to-day spending with no hidden fees, but with cash-back rewards.
Other modern offerings include Instacash, which provides users with interest-free salary advances. MoneyLion also has automated “robo-advising” tools that help consumers plan their finances and investments.
The company said in a statement that it has “engaged” with 7.5M customers since its founding, and “has earned its members' trust by building a full-service digital platform to deliver mobile banking, lending, and investment solutions. From a single app, members can get a 360-degree snapshot of their financial lives and have access to personalized tips and tools to build and improve their credit and achieve everyday savings.”
Plans call for MoneyLion to receive some $526M from the transaction after deducting for fees and debt paydowns. Up to $350M will come from Fusion, with another $250M coming from an add-on private investment led by funds and accounts managed by BlackRock (NYSE:BLK), Apollo Global Management (NYSE:APO) and others.
MoneyLion will take over Fusion’s New York Stock Exchange listing once the deal closes, which the two sides expect will happen by June 30.
Millennial-friendly financial apps like MoneyLion have been popular go-public subjects over the past year. Rival financial app SoFi recently announced plans for a SPAC deal that values the company at some $8.7B, while insurance app Lemonade (NYSE:LMND) soared last June on its first trading day following an initial public offering.
Still, the MoneyLion deal seems to have underwhelmed Fuse investors so far. The stock briefly popped 5.1% early Friday to reach $12.82 a share on the news, but fell back to $11.66 at about 10:30 a.m. ET, down some 4.5% on the session. (See chart below.)
The SoFi deal, which will close in the coming months, is also getting mixed reviews. For instance, Seeking Alpha contributor Ishan Puri recently wrote that "I'm mildly warm on SoFi, but think a lot of the upside is already priced in."
