Plaid Raises $575 Million At $6 Billion Valuation Half Its 2021 Peak But Still Moving Forward

Ever connected your bank account to apps like Venmo, Robinhood, or Coinbase? Then you must have already met Plaid, even if you didn’t realize it. This San Francisco-based fintech infrastructure company powers the connection between financial data and the digital tools that help a user manage it.

Founded in 2012 by Zach Perret and William Hockey, Plaid began with a simple goal to make it easier for people to interact with their finances digitally. What started as a tool for personal finance insights quickly morphed into the digital plumbing behind modern financial apps offering APIs that allow developers to securely access consumer banking data with just a few lines of code.

The Deal That Wasn’t

Plaid made headlines in 2020 when Visa announced plans to acquire the startup for $5.3 billion. The deal, however, fell apart in early 2021 due to antitrust concerns raised by the U.S. Department of Justice. Regulators feared the acquisition would stifle competition in the fast-growing fintech space. Instead of seeing this as a setback, Plaid treated it as fuel for the next phase of growth and never looked back.

Plaid acts as the connective tissue between banks and fintech apps. It provides a secure, standardized way to access financial data everything from account balances and transaction histories to direct-deposit verification and income reports. It’s what makes instant bank verification possible in seconds rather than days.