Extend has announced its $11 million Series A financing. Extend’s
platform enables frictionless virtual credit card issuance for banks,
corporations, and other startups. The round was led by Point72 Ventures
and FinTech Collective, with additional participation from Reciprocal
Ventures and strategic partner City National Bank.
Extend, which is building core infrastructure for the future of
payments, is transforming the $1.6 trillion U.S. corporate card
industry. Its platform also offers a simple, secure virtual card payment
option for the $864 billion U.S. gig economy. Having integrated with
both Mastercard and Visa, and already partnered with a half dozen
strategic banks, Extend will use the funds to launch new features for
its app and open APIs, accelerate bank partnerships, and recruit
top-tier talent across engineering, marketing, and operations.
“Growing customer expectations are driving fintech startups and
financial institutions to develop and deliver more dynamic, feature-rich
digital payments experiences for their customers,” said Tripp Shriner,
Partner, Point72 Ventures. “Extend’s platform enables that innovation
and we are thrilled to support the team as they execute on the large
opportunity in front of them.”
“As companies take increasing advantage of microservices and the gig
economy to build their businesses, Extend is building the critical
infrastructure that will redefine how corporate credit cards can be
distributed to manage these new categories of expenses,” added Gareth
Jones, co-founder and Managing Partner at FinTech Collective. “As seen
in recent news, virtual cards are an area which will continue to see
major innovation this year.”
Extend partners with card issuers so they can deliver advanced virtual
card capabilities to their clients. This allows banks to accelerate
innovation and meet client needs. With Extend, businesses can instantly
send virtual credit cards to anyone, each with a unique spending limit
and validity period, taking control of spend, gaining visibility, and
earning rewards.
“Extend allows banks to keep up with the fast pace of the evolving
payment landscape. Our cutting-edge capabilities sit seamlessly on top
of existing bank card platforms, eliminating traditional technical
hurdles to deployment.” said Andrew Jamison, CEO of Extend. “We lead the
way for future financial innovation by serving as the layer between
fintech startups and financial institutions, enabling them to better
integrate their services for the mutual benefit of their customers.”
“Customers across industries want easy-to-use solutions to their payment
challenges, such as instantly providing access to a credit card without
losing spend control or adding onerous processes. In Extend, we found
both the mobile-based technology our clients need combined with a team
of industry experts that we wanted to work with,” said Vince Hruska,
Head of Enterprise Cards at City National Bank.
About Extend
Extend is a credit card distribution platform, created in partnership
with banks and card networks, that enables both cardholders and
designated recipients to securely and instantly send and receive
temporary virtual credit cards. Extend offers two main products: an app
for businesses that want to instantly give their employees and
contractors a secure means of payment, and a suite of APIs for
incumbents and startups to leverage virtual credit cards. Founded in
2017 by Andrew Jamison, Danny Morrow, and Guillaume Bouvard – industry
veterans with decades of experience at Fortune 500 companies, including
American Express and Capital One – Extend is headquartered in Manhattan,
and has raised $14m to date. For more information visit paywithextend.com.
About Point72 Ventures
Point72 Ventures is a global venture capital firm led by a diverse set
of domain experts with the capital to lead rounds through all stages of
company growth. The firm invests primarily in Fintech, AI/ML, and
Enterprise technologies. As an independent arm of Point72, the global
asset management firm led by Steven A. Cohen, Point72 Ventures offers
well-informed insights into the global economy. Point72 Ventures has
offices in New York City, Palo Alto, San Francisco, and Stamford,
Connecticut.
About FinTech Collective
FinTech Collective is a sector-focused venture capital firm, based in
New York City and investing globally. The firm was founded in 2012 by
Brooks Gibbins and Gareth Jones, who have been working together for
close to two decades and who have helped to build and sell four
businesses in institutional finance, payments, and enterprise AI. Since
inception, FinTech Collective has seeded and helped to build 28
portfolio companies including MoneyLion, Axoni, Vestwell and Embroker.
Exits include Quovo acquired by Plaid, Reorg Research acquired by
Warburg Pincus, and Openfolio acquired by Stone Ridge Asset Management.
The firm is currently investing out of its second fund, a $100m+
early-stage fund with a focus on software, financial services, and
crypto. A weekly client newsletter is available at fintech.io/newsletter.
About City National
With $51.1 billion in assets, City National Bank provides banking,
investment and trust services through 71 offices, including 19
full-service regional centers, in Southern California, the San Francisco
Bay Area, Nevada, New York City, Nashville, Atlanta, Minneapolis and
Washington, D.C. In addition, the company and its investment affiliates
manage or administer $71.7 billion in client investment assets. City
National is a subsidiary of Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), one of North
America’s leading diversified financial services companies. RBC serves
more than 16 million personal, business, public sector and institutional
clients through offices in Canada, the United States and 33 other
countries. For more information about City National, visit the company’s
website at cnb.com.
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