After raising substantial financing in 2022, things went south for Koho.
That year, Koho was recognized by Team True North, representing fintechs as one of Canada’s most promising growth companies. But 2023 saw layoffs and a lack of profitability.
Resilience has been a crucial component of any company that has endured the global market turbulence of the past several years.
KOHO, rebounding with momentum, is no exception.
The self-proclaimed “Challenger Bank” recently secured $190 million in funding, consisting of $40 million in equity and $150 million in debt. The Canadian fintech also announced a schedule of future product launches. It’s all to support KOHO’s growth as it pushes to become Canada’s next big bank.
Indeed, chief executive officer Daniel Eberhard says his team is “more excited than ever.”
“This capital allows us to grow faster and expand our lending business, supporting our bank license application,” he stated. “We’re committed to building and scaling wonderful products like rent reporting, tenant insurance, and buy-now-pay-later, while maintaining our users’ trust.”
And they’re planning to do so via a different approach than many competitors.
For example, multiple big banks in Canada are actively compelling workers to return to the office three days a week or more as sectors outside of tech-sphere look to shed work-from-home leniencies.
“Ultimately, it’s their goal to get everyone back to working in office as much as possible,” one senior employee at a Big Five bank informed us. “The writing on the wall is very clear.”
For tech-forward challenger KOHO, however, working from home is indeed the “new normal” that was so heavily discussed as the Pandemic receded.
TechTalent.ca’s analysis, an aggregate of numerous expert sources, concluded that two or three days per week in-office is probably optimal for most companies, their cultures, and their staff.
But that is a group conclusion. At the individual level—a single company, or particular employee—what is optimal for them will vary.
KOHO, says Eberhard, “is not going back to the office.”
Eberhard believes that, in the current debate surrounding remote and hybrid work policies, “two things are missing.”
One of those missing pieces is that “the value exchange of remote is very different if you’re not in [San Francisco or New York].” (KOHO is Vancouver-born.)
“We have access to execs we never could have hired if we were constrained to local markets,” Eberhard explained in a post on X.
The CEO also posits that, while there are “definitely times when it’s beneficial to be in the same room,” the optimal frequency is “not at all time.” He feels that minimum requirements, such as three days in office per week, are imprecise policies that don’t necessarily optimize culture or maximize productivity.
“There are times when it’s super helpful—kickoffs, retros, firefights, etc.—and there are times when it’s marginally negative,” Eberhard says of in-person collaboration. “We’re trying to be precise about this.”
So what is KOHO’s model, then?
The fintech’s executive team gets together every six weeks for a multi-day offsite.
“We use this time to jam, plan, and connect,” Eberhard says.
As for the rest of the staff, KOHO is cultivating satellite offices based around clusters of workers with regional owners “expected to organize coworking during key moments.”
“As folks turnover, we’ll increasingly backfill locally,” the CEO explains. “Fully ramped we should have ~10 satellite offices based on local teams and they’ll get together, as needed—probably three to five times a quarter.”
KOHO’s work policies are about more than just cost-savings or productivity boosts, though.
“There are a lot of young parents at KOHO,” Eberhard says. “I see my kids 10x more than if I were commuting every day and I think that’s true for many of our folks. That’s worth a lot to me.”
