Monarch, the personal finance and budgeting app, said on October 1, 2026, that it had acquired MBI, the fintech formerly known as HMBradley. It is Monarch's first acquisition, and the company announced it alongside the news that it had passed $100 million in annual recurring revenue.
Terms were not disclosed. The announcement, issued through PR Newswire from San Francisco, gave no price and did not say how the deal was paid for.
The MBI team will form a new unit called Monarch Labs, led by MBI co-founder and chief executive Zach Bruhnke. Monarch said the unit will look for new growth areas and products, with the aim of adding more financial tools and services to its app.
What HMBradley built
HMBradley started as a consumer banking app. It paid customers higher interest rates depending on how much of the money coming into their accounts they saved, and later built Routines, a set of customisable automations that use triggers and actions to save, move and organise money. Monarch said the team also built much of the financial infrastructure behind those products.
The Santa Monica company, which launched in 2019, targeted relatively affluent savers whose deposits averaged more than $40,000, according to Banking Dive. In November 2023 it said it would wind down its consumer deposit and credit card programmes and instead license its core banking technology to traditional banks. Bruhnke said at the time that consumer growth had fallen short of the company's goals that year.
Banking Dive reported that HMBradley's growth had earlier been held back by its first partner bank, Hatch Bank, leaving it unable to take on new users for 18 months until it partnered with New York Community Bank.
Bruhnke told Banking Dive in 2023 that banks had approached HMBradley saying its technology was better than their own and asking to license it, which led to the business-to-business pivot. Dealroom describes the Monarch deal as bringing the HMBradley team into Monarch.
“Joining Monarch gives us the scale, distribution, and trust to move much faster and become a much bigger part of people's financial lives, while continuing to do what we love.”
The founders and the funding
HMBradley raised an $18.25 million Series A in 2020 led by Acrew Capital, an early investor in Chime, according to Fintech Futures. Axios reported a $38 million Series B in 2021, led by Discover Financial and Commerce Ventures, that valued the company at $180 million.
In 2023, as it began building a business-to-business product, the company raised $13 million backed by Castle Creek Capital, a private equity firm focused on community banks. Banking Dive reported that the round was priced below the Series B valuation.
Monarch did not disclose MBI's headcount or how many staff are joining.
Why Monarch is buying
Monarch was founded in 2018 and is backed by investors including FPV, Menlo Ventures, Accel and Forerunner. It said it now has more than 1 million members actively managing their finances on the app, and that it launched a premium tier, Monarch Plus, during 2026.
The company was named to Fast Company's 2026 list of most innovative companies, the 2026 Forbes Fintech 50 and TIME's list of America's best financial services providers, according to the announcement.
Co-founder and chief executive Val Agostino said the company's scale allowed it to invest further and that bringing in the MBI team was part of its next phase. Monarch said it wants to move beyond showing members their finances toward helping them act on that information, with a long-term goal of becoming a single destination for their financial needs.
Bruhnke said joining Monarch would give his team the scale, distribution and trust to move faster than it could on its own.
A shift from insight to action
Monarch said it is building toward a product that does not only give members insight into their money but helps them act on it. The MBI team brings experience of running savings accounts, automated money movement and the banking infrastructure behind them, though Monarch has not said which products Monarch Labs will build first.
Monarch said it will keep improving its core budgeting product while the new unit explores additional services.
