Joust
“Can freelancers get corporate-grade banking, merchant processing, and factoring in one app?”
Founded2017
HQAustin, Texas, United States
FoundersLamine Zarrad, George Kurtyka
Total raised$2.6M+ (pre-acquisition)
Latest roundSeed, 2019
IndustryFintech / SMB banking
The story
Joust was founded in 2017 as a digital bank purpose-built for freelancers and solopreneurs, offering a combined FDIC-insured deposit account, merchant acquiring, and same-day invoice financing (PayArmour) via a network of community banks. After launching publicly in 2019 and adding analytics and card management in 2020, Joust was acquired by ZenBusiness later that year, folding its banking capabilities into ZenBusiness's small-business formation platform. The joustsec.com domain today points to Joust Security Inc., an apparently unrelated infrastructure security business — the fintech operation effectively ended with the ZenBusiness acquisition.
Last 12 months
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Product timeline
2017
Joust founded in Austin by Lamine Zarrad and George Kurtyka to serve freelancers and solopreneurs.· founding
2019
Launched iOS mobile banking app combining FDIC-insured bank account, merchant account, and invoice factoring (PayArmour).· banking
2019
Raised $2.6M seed round led by PTB Ventures.· funding
2020
Exited beta with new banking app adding analytics, debit card management, and invoicing.· banking
2020
Acquired by ZenBusiness (Austin) — ZenBusiness's first acquisition.· acquisition
The stack
2 layers disclosed in Joust’s embedded-finance stack
Payments / PSP
Joust merchant account (self-operated via community bank partner)
Lending
in the full report
Accounting gap: none
3 more providers across 1 layer, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.