The hybrid cash and crypto company is the second startup to spin out of Serotonin.
Franklin, which provides tax-compliant hybrid crypto and cash payroll services to startups and businesses, has raised a $2.9 million seed funding round led by venture capital firms gumi Cryptos Capital (gCC) and CMT Digital. Other investors include Arca, Sfermion, Portage, and Synergis Capital.
Franklin’s payroll software is designed for small to mid-size businesses that want to be able to pay their employees in cryptocurrency. Separate from today’s fundraising news, the company announced Monday that its software now automatically syncs with QuickBooks.
Franklin is live on the Ethereum Mainnet and Polygon blockchains, and its initial clients include crypto wallet providers Soul Wallet and Echooo, as well as Alto.
“We’re focused on providing a more flexible payroll experience, which is why we have a hybrid cash and crypto product,” Franklin founder and CEO Megan Knab told Decrypt. “We found that lots of Web3 native teams wanted to be using crypto, but the administrative burden of it—from tax form generation, the compliance side, accounting side—was too big of a burden for them.”
Franklin’s current customers mostly conduct transactions through stablecoins and process crypto payments for employee bonuses, Knab says. Other features offered through Franklin include batched transactions, multicurrency selection, and automated tax filings.
Franklin claims that it can also process U.S. dollar transactions within two business days.
“There are a bunch of rules in the United States about how you can pay your team in crypto, so we bake all those rules into our platform,” Knab said.
Learn more: Decrypt