teen-banking
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Agora gives old banks a new gear
Agora Financial Technologies puts modern banking products beside legacy systems. Its bet: a community bank can change what customers get without first changing everything underneath.
Modak
Modak (Modak Makers) is a San Francisco Bay Area fintech that gives kids and teens a no-fee Visa debit card paired with a gamified money app for families. Parents fund the card, assign chores, and monitor spending from a dashboard, while kids earn in-app rewards points called Mobucks (MBX) for completing challenges, walking, and learning good money habits. Founded in 2022 by ex-GGV Capital investor Madhu Yalamarthi and backed by a $5.3M seed round, Modak positions itself as a lower-cost, rewards-driven alternative to Greenlight and GoHenry, and says it serves 30,000+ families.
Madhu Yalamarthi
Madhu Yalamarthi is the cofounder and CEO of Modak, a fintech company building a Visa debit card and gamified family app that teaches kids and teens to manage money through chores, allowances, savings goals, and rewards. A first-generation high school graduate from rural India, he earned an MBA and MS from Stanford, where he made Arjay Miller Scholar (top 10%), then spent years as a Vice President at GGV Capital deploying roughly $200 million across 14 startups, five of which became unicorns. He left the investor's chair to build the thing he believed in: turning financial literacy into something kids actually want to practice.