Petal Raises $30M To Expand Credit Card Biz

Petal Credit Card

Petal, the New York-based FinTech that makes a credit card for consumers just starting out, announced Tuesday (Jan. 29) that it raised $30  million in venture funding.

In a press release, Petal said Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures led the Series B round of fundraising. Other investors include Greyhound Capital, which is joining as a new institutional investor, and existing investors Third Prime Capital, Rosecliff Ventures, Story Ventures, RiverPark Ventures and Afore Capital. As part of the capital raise, Petal also said it named two industry veterans to its senior leadership. Parris Sanz, a longtime senior executive with CAN Capital, is joining as Petal’s General Counsel, and Tom Greco, former SVP of Customer Operations at GreenSky, was named VP of Customer Operations.

“Over the past two years, we’ve focused on building both an amazing team and a special product,” Petal Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder Jason Gross said in a press release announcing the funding. “Now, with new funding and new leaders onboard we’re ready to meaningfully scale our business and team. We’re thankful for the support of our investors and partners, and look forward to helping millions of people build credit with Petal.”

Petal is aiming to create an environment where credit is accessible to everyone, including those with no credit score or past history of using credit products. To underwrite customers, Petal looks at a person’s cash flow, or money coming in and out, to determine creditworthiness. In October it launched the Petal Visa card, which helps people build credit and has zero fees associated with it. The FinTech claims to be the only credit card in the U.S. that has no overdraft fee, late fee, international fee, annual fee or any other fees.

To date, Petal has raised more than $80 million in equity and debt financing, including $46.6 million in equity funding raised across Petal’s seed, Series A and Series B rounds of funding, and $34 million in debt financing raised to support the initial public rollout of the Petal Visa card.