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Indianapolis-based financial wellness firm Your Money Line has secured $4.5 million in venture funding to help the company accelerate the development of an artificial intelligence-powered financial coaching tool.
The Series A funding round was led by Allos Ventures, which has offices in both Carmel and Cincinnati, with participation from Wheaton, Illinois-based First Trust Capital Partners, Dayton, Ohio-based Caresource, and Indianapolis-based Elevate Ventures.
Local financial planning guru, IBJ financial columnist and frequent IBJ Podcast guest Peter “Pete the Planner” Dunn is the founder and CEO of Your Money Line. He launched the company in 2002 as Advanced Planning Solutions Inc., initially focused on delivering financial advice under the Pete the Planner brand via books, radio programming, newspaper columns, and speaking engagements. Since about 2018, the company has focused on selling its financial education and coaching services to employers.
The company currently has about 300 customers—businesses, schools, hospital systems and other employers that hire Your Money Line to provide financial coaching as a free benefit to their employees.
Your Money Line’s educational materials and live coaches can, for instance, help an employee create a budget, plan for retirement, or weigh the pros and cons of buying vs. leasing a car.
Now, the company is working on an AI-powered tool that will offer more customized advice.
“We’re in the midst of building it, and part of the funds from the [Series A] round really are to complete the build,” Dunn said. “Ultimately, what we want to do is give better personal finance guidance to very specific situations.”
For instance, Dunn said, the tool could use an employee’s financial transaction history, financial goals, saving and spending habits, and other data to predict that an individual will face a cash crunch in two months. The tool could then alert the individual to this prediction and suggest strategies to avoid the problem.
Your Money Line is already using a beta version of the AI tool internally before launching it for external users, Dunn said, and the tool will continue to evolve over the next 12 to 18 months or so.
The AI tool won’t replace Your Money Line’s live financial coaches, Dunn said. Instead, it will help those coaches work more effectively.
“It’s really about taking people’s data and using it for good as opposed to selling them more stuff,” Dunn said. “We’re using it to open up the ‘black boxes’ of a person’s financial life.”
Dunn said he anticipates adding another 40 to 45 jobs at his company over the next two and a half years, essentially tripling its current head count.
Your Money Line previously raised $2.8 million in a seed round in 2022. Including the Series A round announced this week, the company has raised just more than $7.3 million to date.
In connection with the investment, Allos Ventures Managing Partner David Kerr and First Trust Senior Vice President Mark Kroeger will join Your Money Line’s board of directors.
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