Extend was founded in 2017 with one mission: to modernize the payments industry from the inside out. Extend provides the digital payment infrastructure that powers modern card experiences for banks and, just as importantly, allows main street banks to keep pace with the innovation of their neobank competitors. To date, Extend has integrated directly with major card networks and processors—including Mastercard, Visa, American Express, and Global Payments/TSYS—to ensure that its platform works seamlessly with a bank’s existing card technology and programs.
In 2021, Extend has continued to see the demand for digital payments skyrocket. Extend saw 1,000% growth in new users on its platform and reached north of $2 billion in annualized charge volume. This growth underlines the great potential behind Extend’s unique vision for the future of payments. Over the summer, this was recognized by top investors as Extend raised $40M in a Series B funding round led by March Capital with participation from B Capital Group, Point72 Ventures, FinTech Collective, Reciprocal Ventures, Wells Fargo, and Pacific Western Bank.
In September, Extend announced a partnership with American Express, allowing any American Express Business and Corporate cardholder to create American Express virtual credit cards through the Extend platform. Unique to the solution is the ability for cardmembers to enroll in the service within minutes using their existing American Express credit card.
In addition to adding new bank partners to Extend’s portfolio this year, the team also helped companies launch several new products using Extend’s virtual card APIs. One example is a new Buy Now, Pay Later solution stood up on credit rails by a partner that offers patients a short-term borrowing option for minor health services. By embedding card issuance and payments directly into their business processes, companies are able to provide users or customers a seamless payment experience whilst driving all-important internal cost savings through process efficiencies.
Extend also rolled out new services this year, including the first true virtual card provisioning solution into mobile wallets. While many business transactions are happening online, there is still a need for in-store purchases and, historically, virtual cards lack of point-of-sale acceptance has been a significant drawback. With Extend’s virtual cards now compatible with mobile wallets, the company has reached this last frontier for users. As travel and entertainment spending makes a comeback from the lockdown of the pandemic, this feature has been a point of excitement for many of Extend’s partners and clients. Another service the company launched was the ability to run sanctions screening on all virtual card recipients. With employees, contractors, and freelancers rapidly adopting virtual cards, Extend recognized the value of offering sanctions screening as a service to its bank partners, just like it recognized the value of provisioning virtual cards into digital wallets.
“This was truly an exciting year for us as founders on so many fronts,” shared Andrew Jamison, CEO and co-founder of Extend. “Many of our formative years as a company were spent building the platform and integrating with the right strategic partners. In 2021, we focused on getting out into the market in a big way. Across all of our issuing partners, we saw tremendous appetite for our solution from their business customers. The explosion of new users and spending has been incredibly rewarding to see, but more than that, the ability of our team to handle this scale and rapid growth while simultaneously expanding on our platform’s capabilities has been awe-inspiring. We have much to look forward to as 2022 rolls in.”
Since the start of the pandemic, Extend’s team has more than doubled in size. New recruits range from seasoned financial technology experts to all-star engineers and customer success champions. In 2022, the company expects to double in size again by hiring talent across departments.
The momentum Extend has built over the last year will make for a strong start to 2022, with exciting announcements already on the horizon.
About Extend
Extend Enterprises Inc provides digital payment infrastructure for trusted financial institutions to enable modern card experiences. Leading banks, businesses, and other innovators can now access the full power of virtual cards for their business, products, and clients. Extend offers several products, including a suite of aggregated virtual card APIs, a digital corporate card app, and an industry-first card tokenization service. Founded in 2017 by industry veterans with decades of experience at Fortune 500 companies, including American Express and Capital One, Extend is headquartered in New York. For more information visit: paywithextend.com.
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