Three Friends Raised $15M to Help Community Banks Catch Up With Big Tech

As teenagers in Silicon Valley, Gautam Ajjarapu and Sameer Kapur were already trying to build things. They launched various side projects like a resume builder and an edtech platform. In college at the University of Illinois, Ajjarapu met Vishnu Chakroborty. The three of them shared a love for solving problems with technology. In 2021, they teamed up and started Glide.

Glide began as a digital bank with some crypto features. But the founders soon realized something more important, many small banks and credit unions in the U.S. were far behind in digital services. Their systems were slow, outdated, and hard to use. That’s where Glide saw a real opportunity.

In 2023, the team changed direction. Glide dropped the consumer banking idea and instead focused on building technology for credit unions and community banks. Today, it offers a simple, white-label digital banking portal that lets customers open accounts and apply for loans online. It's fast, smooth, and built to plug into a bank’s existing systems.

By 2024, Glide had signed over 15 financial institutions and earned $2 million in annualized revenue. That same year, the company was listed in Forbes 30 Under 30 for finance, indicating that the startup’s quiet shift was working.