Dive Overview:
Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Totem Technologies is shutting down, the fintech company’s founder and CEO, Amber Booker, said in a LinkedIn post over the weekend.
“The totem has come to an end,” Booker wrote. Post to website.
The neobank, which has raised about $2.2 million in pre-seed funding, has about 500 customers, Booker said.
Dive Insights:
totem Himself The report aims to provide banking services by and for Indigenous people, who it says are more likely to be unbanked and live farther from bank branches. The fintech, which has a mobile banking app that offers spending accounts, debit cards and early access to paychecks, rolled out its product to consumers in July 2023. American Banker reported.
Pryor, Oklahoma-based First Priority Bank provided banking services to Totem and issued the fintech’s debit cards. The startup’s website also said it would share a portion of its revenue with tribal partners, including the Eastern Shawnee Tribe in Oklahoma, which would promote Totem’s services to its members in exchange for a cut of the fintech’s interchange revenue.
Amber Booker
Totem Provided
In his LinkedIn post, Booker didn’t provide details about when Totem notified clients of the company’s closure or what specifically happened in the startup’s demise, but he suggested investors were hoping for quicker, more immediate progress from the fintech company.
“We have built an ethical business model, catered to a broader community need through value-added services such as payments, and proven that we can serve ‘high-risk’ or ‘niche’ populations by building holistically,” Bukar said. Enrolled citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma“But businesses that want to contribute to Indian reservations can only do so at the speed of trust, which is much slower than the pace at which ventures are expected to move.”
Booker did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did Raven Indigenous Capital Partners, a Canadian venture capital firm that has invested in Totem.
Booker remains embroiled in a legal battle. Richard Chance, the fintech’s co-founder and former chief technology officer, accused Booker of denying him a promised stake in the company last year, American Banker reported, and said Booker had threatened legal action against him for misappropriating the company’s intellectual property.
“I am incredibly proud of the work we’ve accomplished in just two years to improve the financial health and access to banking for Native Americans across the country,” Booker wrote. “We’ve built thoughtful, culturally appropriate banking products for Native American people.”
