Wage raises $5 million

San Francisco-based Wage , an infrastructure software solution that lets people share their payroll data with third parties, has raised $5 million in a funding round led by Google’s AI-focused venture fund, Gradient Ventures, with follow-on investment from 8VC, Pear Ventures, Bloomberg Beta, CoFound Partners, and executives from SoFi, Public, Zillow, and Affirm.

Originally founded as Verix in 2018, Wage works with payroll companies covering more than 30 million employees who work at firms such as Amazon, Delta Airlines, Best Buy, Starbucks, Dell, Hyatt Hotels, among others. Wage’s API infrastructure delivers direct-source payroll data instantly, with a credential-less process – no clunky login flows or document uploads are required. By leveraging direct data integrations with payroll partners, the company enables consumers to ‘quickly and securely’ share their data with third parties they choose – such as lenders, landlords, hiring managers, and other fintech apps.

“Historically, payroll data access has been a burdensome process for financial services providers, consumers, and employers. Our solution is comparable to a credit check. We completely remove the friction point of relying on consumers or their employers to act, whether uploading a document, entering data, taking a phone call, or going through a login flow.” – Ben Prawdzik, CEO and co-founder of Wage.

“A great deal of credit decisioning is a black box that penalizes people with little-to-no credit history and doesn’t capture one’s full potential. Wage provides accurate and up-to-date payroll data seamlessly and securely – creating a more equitable and inclusive financial ecosystem, and empowering consumers, financial services, employers, and others with efficiency and control over the use and access of their data. Wage has seen impressive growth since its inception, and we look forward to supporting its momentum.” – Zachary Bratun-Glennon, a Partner at Gradient Ventures.