Exclusive: Badge raises $17 million to chase the next era of digital wallets

Wallets have always been wherever money is. 

In antiquity, it was leather pouches for coins. In the Renaissance, it was folding pocketbooks that developed alongside the rise of paper currency. And now, with smartphones, it’s something else altogether. 

“The future of the wallet is very different than it is today, as it’s becoming a much more dynamic surface,” said Eric Senn, CEO and cofounder of digital wallet development startup Badge. He pointed to Apple’s new ticket interface as an example—not just a ticket but a portal to merch, food ordering, and venue maps. To Senn, it’s part of a larger shift: the wallet becoming a core layer of the iOS and Android ecosystem, not just a feature tucked inside it.

Senn—who previously cofounded mobile commerce marketplace Storr—has bet the next phase of his career on this trajectory. And investors are getting on board: Badge has raised $17.1 million in funding, Fortune has exclusively learned. This includes a $13.8 million Series A, led by TTV Capital and with participation from Stripe, Synchrony Ventures, and Infinity Ventures. (The company, founded in 2023, also raised a previously unannounced $3.3 million seed round, with QED Investors and Infinity as investors.) 

“When you think about surfaces, we have websites and apps, and this is a new surface that brands have to play in,” said Senn. “More people use Apple and Google Wallet today than TikTok. And brands and businesses would never ignore TikTok or Instagram—it’s a place where they need a strategy.”

“Wallets have guaranteed reach,” Senn points out. “They’re pre-installed on users’ phones. It’s a lighter-touch way to engage and retain a customer versus asking them to download an app, which we know increasingly consumers don’t want to do.”

The biggest challenge in mobile wallet commerce, Senn says, isn’t growth—it’s not wrecking the channel. Badge focuses on the revenue-driving functions that make wallets sticky: loyalty programs, gift cards, membership cards, tickets. But app fatigue is real, and Senn says the team is actively thinking about retaining integrity—how to build guardrails that prevent wallets from going the way of email and SMS, buried under spam.

I do think there inevitably will be digital wallet spam, for the record. (It’s the way of the world.) But I also do think that Senn’s right, that our relationship to our money-carrying entities is changing.  

“We’re kind of entering this new world where maybe our kids won’t even have physical wallets,” said Senn. “I think that represents a really big opportunity for businesses to play in this new digital space. You can have a relationship with someone’s wallet versus a physical card. We’re just scratching the surface of where it will be.”

See you tomorrow,

Allie Garfinkle
X: @agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com
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This story was originally featured on Fortune.com