News: Galileo Raises $77M Series A from Accel
The News: Galileo Financial Technologies announced a $77m Series A round, led by Accel. Qualtrics co-founder and CEO Ryan Smith also participated.
The fundraising is going to be used for a few things: Mainly expanding into Latin America, the UK, and Europe; and developing new products.
(Editor’s Note: Galileo is a sponsor for Fintech Today.)
Why It Matters: Galileo is lowkey powering some of the biggest consumer fintech companies—Chime, Robinhood, Monzo US, Revolut, Tranferwise, Varo, and a lot others. Their key product is a card issuing API where clients can also serve as the program manager too—in English, that means that you can create custom card programs that work for your business, instead of other companies in the space. They’ve also been around for awhile—19 years and counting— and clients I’ve chatted with have been really impressed with their experience and knowhow in the banking infrastructure space, and the ability to explain it easily.
The numbers from today’s press release are impressive: Galileo is already profitable and, as of Sept. 2019, managing $26 billion in payments—a 130 percent increase from the year before.
Also, damn, the B2B fintech infrastructure space is getting competitive AF: There’s Synapse, which has raised $50 million so far; Bond, which was incubated by Canaan Partners and raised a $10m round recently; and others that are a bit more under the radar, like Treasury Prime and Sila Money.
Full Press Release below 👇👇👇
Galileo Financial Technologies Raises $77 Million Series A Led by Accel
Already profitable Galileo crosses $26B of annual processing volume in September as global growth accelerates
Salt Lake City, October 17, 2019 — Galileo, the company whose APIs power the next generation of banking products globally, announced its first institutional funding round today — a $77 million investment led by venture capital firm Accel with participation from Qualtrics Co-Founder & CEO Ryan Smith. The company, which is already profitable and growing rapidly, plans to use the funds to accelerate growth, including expansion into Latin America, the UK and Europe, and for continued product expansion.
Many of the most discerning tech companies globally — including Chime, Robinhood, Monzo, Revolut, Transferwise, Varo and many others — trust Galileo’s APIs to open and verify new financial accounts, issue and process payment cards, and launch new products. Whether an account is accessed via debit, credit, prepaid or mobile, with Galileo all fintech products are integrated on one API platform.
Galileo Founder & CEO Clay Wilkes said, “Over the years, we’ve built the API standard for card issuing programs and fintech innovation, focusing on a feature- rich product set, profitability and delighting our clients. This funding will help us double-down on these themes, while also becoming more aggressive in expanding geographically and providing the building blocks for the world’s most innovative payments programs. We’re thrilled to be working with Accel and Ryan Smith.”
As of September 2019, Galileo manages over $26B in annual payments volume, a 130 percent increase over September 2018. Galileo’s APIs are used widely throughout the neobank, payments, gig economy, investing and SaaS market segments.
Accel Partner John Locke, who is joining the Galileo Board of Directors as part of the investment, said, “We’re in a golden era of fintech innovation and Galileo has quietly built the API infrastructure layer powering the industry’s most innovative products. Clay and his team have built a very impressive business with many parallels to companies like Qualtrics and Atlassian: bootstrapping first to build a quiet, profitable powerhouse and now, ready to go big globally. We’re excited to help Clay and team take Galileo to the next level.”
With more services in the pipeline and an aggressive roadmap for adding new platform features, Galileo continues to enable its clients to challenge the status quo in payments.
Galileo is based in Salt Lake City, Utah. The company is actively hiring in Salt Lake City, San Francisco and New York City.
About Galileo
Based in Salt Lake City, Galileo is the API standard for card issuing programs. The payments technology company powers the world’s most innovative card and fintech programs in North America. Check out Galileo at www.galileo-FT.com.
About Accel
Accel is a leading venture capital firm that partners with exceptional founders with unique insights, from inception through all phases of private company growth. Atlassian, Braintree, Cloudera, Crowdstrike, DJI, DocuSign, Dropbox, Etsy, Facebook, Flipkart, Jet, Pillpack, Qualtrics, Slack, Spotify, Supercell, Tenable, UiPath, Venmo, and Vox Media are among the companies the firm has backed over the past 35+ years. The firm seeks to understand entrepreneurs as individuals, appreciate their originality and play to their strengths. Because greatness doesn’t have a stereotype. For more, visit www.accel.com or www.twitter.com/accel
