August 31, 2026 – In a tight fundraising environment, Pearler has closed a $16 million Series A capital raise led by Portage, which also led the company’s $7.8 million seed investment four years ago.
Four other investors joined the Series A round: Altered Capital, whose founding partners backed UK challenger bank Starling from its seed round in 2015 and still hold a substantial position, and No Brand, a private investment company backing founder-led businesses.
Chris Cuffe’s new Partners Horizon Fund and Charlie Gearside, who co-founded Eucalyptus, the digital health group, also joined the raise. TEN13, on the register since the 2022 seed round, has followed on.
The investment platform now has more than 110,000 active customers and more than $3.5 billion in holdings across shares, super and first home deposits, 86 per cent of it in exchange traded funds, the vehicle of choice for their demographic of everyday zillennials.
“We run lean on tech and leaner on budget,” Nick Nicolaides, co-founder and CEO of Pearler, says. “After a few years building the product and grassroots community, we have total control of our cash flow and we can deploy all of this capital injection towards new products and taking our get rich slow message to a national scale. We are on the verge of introducing a new suite of index investing options, superannuation updates and investing services for homeowners, each designed for specific challenges facing our generations, and to help our community reach financial independence faster.”
Charlie Gearside joins the cap table after advising the Company over the past two-years. “Young Australians are facing one of the toughest environments we’ve seen for building wealth, and they need financial institutions built for that reality. Pearler is building one of Australia’s great consumer brands, with a hugely talented team led by Nick and Hayden.” Says Gearside.
Nicolaides adds, “This round isn’t just about the capital raise but a clear signal that Portage and our other investors, who’ve seen us perform through multiple market cycles, believe in the next phase of growth. We’ve had the luxury of pointing to our efficiency and steady growth over the last few years, this capital raises the stakes and ambition – the team is pumped to finally have some firepower to match our creativity.”
This announcement follows the company’s first in-house creative team deployment ahead of its national marketing campaign. Pearler has appointed Jackson Nunn as its Creative Director. Nunn joins Pearler from Clemenger.
The raise adds Pearler to a run of Series A rounds closed by Australian companies in recent months, including Everlab’s $65 million round in June, Syenta’s $36 million round in April and Ideally’s $13.4 million round, also in April – the last of which, like Pearler, counted Altered Capital among its backers. It’s a different order of magnitude to the mega rounds at the top of the fintech market – Airwallex raised US$320 million in June at a US$11 billion valuation.
About Pearler
Pearler is an Australian investing platform built for long term investors. It launched publicly in March 2021 and offers ASX and US share investing, micro-investing, kids’ investment accounts through Headstart, savings rewards, superannuation and a first home deposit product.
Pearler Investments Pty Ltd (ABN 32 625 120 649) is an Authorised Representative (No. 1281540) of Sanlam Private Wealth Pty Ltd (AFSL 337927).
Website: https://pearler.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pearler/
X: @pearlerHQ
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