OWL VENTURES

Bling Raises $12 Million to Help Families Manage Everyday Life with Its Educational Family-Super-App

June 27, 2024

Bling, Europe’s first Super-App for families, has successfully completed a Series A equity funding round, raising a total of $12 million. With this funding, the Berlin-based company aims to further solidify its leading position by providing easy-to-understand, family-friendly digital solutions that help educate and simplify families‘ everyday lives in the areas of savings, investments, communications and security. The funding round is led by Owl Ventures, the world’s largest venture capital fund focused on EdTech. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Owl Ventures manages over $2 billion in assets and has invested in some of the most successful EdTech companies, including Quizlet, Preply, and MasterClass. Co-investors in the round include Commerzbank Group’s VC, Neosfer, as well as existing investors PEAK and Angel Invest.

“Nearly 70% of parents are overwhelmed in their daily lives and risk burnout. Our app delivers sustainable relief for families by providing tools that educate and enable: from easy payments and investments to a task and shopping planner, and family-friendly mobile communications,” said Nils Feigenwinter, Co-Founder and CEO of Bling. “Within less than two years, 150,000 family members have chosen to simplify their daily lives and make smarter with Bling’s family-friendly solutions. For many, Bling is already the ultimate Super-App for families.”

Bling’s mission is to improve the financial and media literacy of children and families by using simple visualizations and educational information in the app. Launched in the summer of 2022 with a pocket money card and accompanying app, Bling quickly evolved into a holistic platform for families, via partnerships with industry leaders across verticals including Société Générale and Evergreen, providing Bling’s B2B2C partners with unique access to the family target group. Most recently, in February 2024, Bling added its own family-friendly mobile phone plans, “Bling Mobile,” in collaboration with Europe’s largest telco company, Telekom. This complements its suite of services including modern pocket money solution, easy investments for parents, and household organization features.

"Bling’s educational-first approach is clearly resonating with families and is poised to establish itself as one of the most trusted brands for families in Europe."

“With an excellent product, an innovative B2B2C platform, and strong customer growth, Bling’s educational-first approach is clearly resonating with families and is poised to establish itself as one of the most trusted brands for families in Europe ,” said Jenny Wang, Partner and Head of Europe at Owl Ventures. “We are excited to build a long-term partnership with Bling and its Education Board, to improve financial and media literacy for the whole family.”

Leon Stephan, Co-Founder and CTO of Bling, commented on the rapid growth: “Bling is built as a platform, which significantly simplifies and accelerates product development. Within less than two years, we have replaced many of the most common apps for payments, investing, to-dos, shopping management, and mobile communications with Bling. With this round of funding and our extensible platform, we will be able to rapidly deliver even more educational features to our families.”

To date, Bling has raised more than $15 million in total capital from renowned institutional investors (Owl Ventures, General Catalyst/LaFamiglia, PEAK, Neosfer) and prominent business angels (Verena Pausder, Lea-Sophie Cramer, André Schürrle). The new funding will be used to expand its product offerings on Bling’s platform with families in mind, further invest in strategic distribution partnerships, and accelerate growth.

About Bling

Founded in 2021 in Berlin, Bling is Europe’s first Super-App for families, providing educational, family-friendly digital solutions in the areas of payment, investment, and mobile communications. Bling’s mission is to improve the financial and media literacy of families by using simple visualizations and educational information in the app and on social media. Numerous renowned investors such as General Catalyst/La Famiglia, Owl Ventures and PEAK are involved with Bling.

About Owl Ventures

Owl Ventures is the largest venture capital fund in the world focused on the education technology market with over $2.2 billion in assets under management. The Silicon Valley based firm invests in the world’s leading education technology companies across the education spectrum encompassing PreK-12, higher education and future of work (career mobility/professional learning). Owl Ventures has deep domain expertise and leverages a global network of Limited Partners, investors, and strategic partners to help entrepreneurs scale their businesses into transformative category-leading companies.