Zach Perret, CEO and co-founder of Plaid, speaks at the Silicon Slopes Tech Summit in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, on January 31, 2020.
George Frey | Bloomberg via Getty Images
Plaid raised another round of capital that nearly tripled its valuation a few months after a Visa-to-buy deal fell apart.
The fintech firm announced a $ 425 million Series D funding round on Wednesday, led by Altimeter Capital with the participation of new investors, Silver Lake and Ribbit Capital. Previous investors Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, Kleiner Perkins and New Enterprise Associates also contributed to the round.
The new funding boosts Plaid’s valuation to $ 13.4 billion, according to a person familiar with the case, who asked not to be named because the details were private. The information first reported that Plaid was in the process of raising money.
Early last year, Visa agreed to buy Plaid for $ 5.3 billion, which at the time was double the San Francisco-based startup’s previous valuation. The Justice Department later sued to block the deal because it would restrict competition in the payments industry. A few months later, Visa scrapped the acquisition. The companies said the decision to end the merger was mutual.
Plaid’s technology links the bank account to fintech apps such as Venmo, Robinhood and Coinbase – all of which have experienced dazzling growth during the pandemic. Plaid also added Google and Microsoft as customers last year, saying its customer base grew 60% in 2020 amid the surge in digital finance.
CEO Zach Perret said the latest cash injection would help Plaid increase its workforce, which grew 40% last year, and keep up with demand. He pointed out new digital adopters like his parents, whose 70-year-old peers recommend online financial apps to manage spending.
“Our market is undergoing a big change, with consumers we never thought would embrace digital finance, who are on a massive scale,” Perret told CNBC in a telephone interview.
Plaid has attracted a star-studded roster of Silicon Valley and Wall Street investors, including the venture-investing arms of Visa, Citi, Google and Goldman Sachs. Mary Meeker, the former tech investment banker who has poured into venture capital for the past decade, was an early investor and sits on the start-up’s board.
“A new financial era is underway and Plaid is in a strong position to help develop the digital ecosystem that delivers the types of tools and services that consumers want, at scale,” Meeker told CNBC in an email. .
As for the plans to release Plaid, Perret said there is “nothing on the horizon any time soon.” “But in the long run, that’s definitely the direction we want to go,” he said.