NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--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.