Here's the 21-page pitch deck a Citi-backed fintech for freelancers used to raise $155 million from investors like hedge fund Tiger Global

• HoneyBook, a fintech platform for freelancers, raised $155 million in funding and became a unicorn.
• Tiger Global and Durable Capital Partners participated after backing fintech startup Brex last week.
• The San Francisco-based fintech provided Insider the pitch deck it used to raise that round.

While countless small businesses have been harmed by the pandemic, self-employment and entrepreneurship have found ways to blossom as Americans started new ventures.

Half of the US population may be freelance by 2027, according to a study commissioned by remote-work hiring platform Upwork. HoneyBook, a fintech startup that provides payment and operations support for freelancers, just raised $155 million in funding and achieved unicorn status with its $1 billion-plus valuation.

Durable Capital Partners led the Series D funding with other new investors including renowned hedge fund Tiger Global, Battery Ventures, Zeev Ventures, and 01 Advisors. Citi Ventures, Citigroup's startup investment arm that also backs fintech robo-advisor Betterment, participated as an existing investor in the round alongside Norwest Venture partners. The latest round brings the company's fundraising total to $227 million to date.

HoneyBook, founded in 2013 by husband and wife Oz and Naama Alon, saw its business soar this year buoyed by the surge in freelance work. Oz, who once ran a bar business, and Naama, who used to be a freelance graphic designer, created HoneyBook to provide a holistic client experience management system for independent businesses.

Oz Alon told Insider in an interview that HoneyBook plans to use the proceeds to invest in areas driven by user demand, including facilitating members' access to capital and helping them promote themselves online.

"It's our job to free up [our users'] time," Alon said. "We need to figure out how to take over another thing that a robot can do."

"Creativity, craft, service, and experience -- these are human superpowers. Filing taxes or sending an invoice or reminding someone to pay us -- robots can do that," Alon said.

Alon said the number of members on the platform has doubled since last year, though he declined to share the total number of users. HoneyBook's Facebook community for freelancers has over 76,000 members.

Durable Capital Partners and Tiger Global both also invested in last week in credit card and cash management startup Brex at $7.4 billion, doubling its prior valuation.

Oren Zeev, founding partner at venture capital firm Zeev Ventures, said his firm invested in HoneyBook after turning them down in prior rounds.

"Our relationship was not that he came [to me] every year to pitch," Zeev told Insider. "We just got together and I would try to advise him. He treated me like a friend. I never thought that I would ever invest because I thought it was past my stage, but it was so compelling that I decided to [participate]."

Here is the pitch deck this buzzy fintech startup used to raise the $155 million round. The firm redacted financials and other details before providing the deck to Insider.