Astra makes it easier for professionals to achieve their financial goals

In pursuit of its mission to make finances more intelligent, empowering, and personal, Astra—a smart personal finance tool for the overbanked, goal-oriented professional—recently launched a flexible, customizable iOS app that leverages user-defined rules and automation to save people time and reduce stress in the face of hairy financial challenges.

But before Astra could get to a place of intrinsic utility, co-founders Gil Akos and Sam Morgan needed to find a financial data API that, one, allowed for secure account integration and, two, could act as a switching station as users’ money moved between accounts based on their defined actions. From the beginning, they found their solution in Plaid and the Dwolla integration.

“It was foundational to what we were doing even before we had a proper product in place. Nothing else was as robust or developer friendly,” said Akos.

With Plaid at its foundation, Astra has the technical stability to pursue personal finance innovation. Learn more about the partnership and the learning-based, incremental optimization it will soon enable.