Penelope

Penelope is a New York fintech that makes 401(k) retirement plans practical for the businesses that usually get ignored - the corner shop, the two-person startup, the solopreneur. Founded in 2021 by former Wall Street executive Jean Kim Smart and named after her daughter, the company started as a low-cost, self-service platform offering Pooled Employer Plans, traditional 401(k)s and Solo 401(k)s, and has since built a cloud-native, API-first, SECURE 2.0-ready recordkeeping platform that independent recordkeepers and benefit providers can run under their own brand. The pitch is unglamorous but real: automate the paperwork, cut the cost, and let roughly 60 million Americans who work for small employers start saving.