Propel Raises $4M to Digitize the Food Stamp Program

Propel, a startup that helps food stamp recipients manage their benefits, announced recently that it has raised $4 million in seed funding. Investors in the round include Andreessen Horowitz, the Omidyar Network, ehe Durant Company and SciFi VC. Previous investors Jay Borenstein, WinWin and the Financial Solutions Lab at the Center for Financial Services Innovation also participated in the round.

Founded by Jimmy Chen and Kevin Miller in 2014, Propel’s core product is an app called Fresh EBT. EBT is “Electronic Benefit Transfer,” a system that allows state governments to provide and track benefits to authorized recipients via a plastic debit card. The most common benefits provided by EBT are food stamps and cash payments.

Users of traditional EBT cards would call a customer service hotline or go to the nearest ATM or POS machine to check their food assistance or cash account balances. Propel, however, allows EBT cardholders to use an app to check their balances in as little as five seconds. People can also use the Fresh EBT app to view their spending and transaction histories, search for local deals, and find nearby stores that accept the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps.

Propel maintains that it is on a mission to serve low-income Americans, who are often overlooked by typical tech innovation. The food stamps program, a $70 billion annual government expenditure, reaches 45 million Americans.