- Spade, a fintech startup that provides highly specific payment data to banks and fintech companies, has raised $10 million in Series A funding.
- The round was led by Flourish Ventures, and also included Andreessen Horowitz, Gradient Ventures, Y Combinator, Dash Fund and Everywhere Ventures.
- The company plans to use their new funds to expand their team and explore new markets including Canada, South America and the UK.
Spade, an innovative fintech startup that originated from a need to improve the outdated technology used in financial transactions, announced that they have raised $10 million in a Series A funding round, which was led by Flourish Ventures. Other participants included Andreessen Horowitz , Gradient Ventures, Y Combinator, Dash Fund, and Everywhere Ventures. Spade offers more granular payment data to banks and other fintech companies; this data can be used to better understand and predict where a company’s customers are spending their money, and can also help to mitigate fraud.
While accurate merchant profiles have often been difficult to obtain, Spade fills this gap by offering data on a vast array of merchants; this includes data on businesses of all sizes, across nearly the entire country. The data provided by Spade can include the merchant’s category, geolocation, operating hours, and more. This service is offered in real-time, and uses machine learning technology to quickly analyze and relay relevant data. This service is made available to clients through an API, and Spade earns their revenue through a fee charged each time a customer makes a transaction.
A number of fintech companies already utilise Spade’s services; these include Unit, a fintech offering embedded finance, Ramp, a provider of corporate cards, Mercury, which is focused on start-ups, and fraud prevention fintech, Sardine. CEO Oban MacTavish reported a 15% increase in the accuracy of fraud detection models for some clients. Further, the number of false declines and mistakenly filed disputes have both been reduced.
The recent Series A round follows closely on the heels of Spade’s seed round in February which raised $5 million. The funds from the Series A round will be used to expand the Spade team, with a focus on hiring personnel for data science, machine learning and customer success. The company also plans on expanding further into the enterprise sector, and is aiming to enter new markets like Canada, South America and the United Kingdom.
