Dive Brief:
- Digital credit card startup Deserve said Wednesday it’s secured a $250 million credit facility from Goldman Sachs, Cross River, and Waterfall Asset Management, according to a press release.
- Palo Alto, California-based Deserve, founded in 2013, partners with financial institutions, fintechs and consumer brands to offer white label and co-branded credit card programs. The company plans to use the credit facility for financing of its credit card receivables, according to a company statement.
- In the past year, crypto trading company BlockFi, digital banking services firm OppFi and the media company Seneca Women have used Deserve to launch credit card programs.
Dive Insight:
Deserve helps organizations “quickly and securely launch any type of credit card product in the cloud, customized to their specific audience,” the company's CEO and cofounder, Kalpesh Kapadia, said in the release.
In June 2021, Deserve pulled in $50 million in venture capital at a $500 million valuation. Notable names among Deserve’s investors: card giants Visa and Mastercard, per the Silicon Valley Business Journal. To date, the company has raised about $150 million, according to the statement.
Deserve also uses Visa’s instant issuance and security technology and was part of the card company's fintech fast-track program aimed at partnering with startups to scale their businesses. Deserve worked with the top card company last year to roll out BlockFi’s credit card, which offers cryptocurrency rewards.
This year, Deserve intends to focus on card programs for small and medium-sized businesses and those allowing consumers to manage subscriptions.
The credit facility will support Deserve in providing services that aid fintechs, financial institutions and small and mid-sized business lenders in seeking to build their customer bases, Kapadia said in the release.
In April, the company introduced a service enabling banks and B2B companies to launch corporate credit cards, PYMNTS reported.
The company’s employees are divided among a Murray, Utah call center — where the majority work — its Palo Alto headquarters and India, the Silicon Valley Business Journal reported.
The chill affecting investments and valuations in the startup world this year hasn’t stopped companies in the payments space, like Deserve, from pulling in funding recently.
In another example, embedded payments startup Infinicept announced Wednesday it had raised $23 million, led by SVB Financial Group and Piper Sandler Merchant Banking. The Denver-based Infinicept would not share the amount of capital it’s raised to date. It counts about 300 software companies as customers, and will use the capital to grow and fund product innovation.
Also, Startup Cushion, which provides consumers with an automated bank and credit card fee negotiating service, has raised $12 million, the company announced Thursday. Rose Park Advisors led the funding round. The San Francisco company will use the capital to hire product, engineering, marketing and data analytics staff as it prepares to launch a new bill pay tool.
