Lead Bank Raises $70 Million to Grow BaaS Platform

Lead Bank raised $70 million in a Series B funding round that brought its post-money valuation to $1.47 billion.

The company is a state-chartered bank, offers a banking-as-a-service (BaaS) platform for FinTechs and digital asset companies, and provides full-service business and personal banking to clients across the U.S., according to a Thursday (Sept. 4) press release.

In the release, Lead Bank said it became a strategic banking partner of workplace payments platform Branch in July and partnered with Stripe and Visa in April to power their stablecoin-linked payment card platform.

“The fastest growing FinTechs want to work with a bank that moves at their speed, without compromising on risk or compliance,” Lead Bank CEO Jackie Reses said in the release. “We’re grateful to our investors, new and old, for seeing the future as we do — one where we can use technology and creativity to elevate banking standards and drive more innovation in finance.”

Lead Bank’s latest funding round included new investors ICONIQ and Greycroft and existing investors Ribbit Capital, Coatue, Khosla Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and Zeev Ventures, per the release.

ICONIQ said in a Thursday post on LinkedIn that it supports Lead Bank’s mission to become “the trusted infrastructure layer for the world’s top FinTechs.”

The investment management firm said that it is doing so because while FinTech thrives on speed and innovation, it has too often been constrained by the lagging infrastructure behind it.

“Lead Bank is a compliance-first, API-native and vertically integrated platform rebuilding banking from the ground up,” ICONIQ said in its post. “Led by Jacqueline Reses and a team with deep operational and regulatory fluency, they’re powering real-time payments, card issuance, lending and even stablecoin-linked accounts, all through a single system of record.”

When Branch announced in a July press release that it added Lead Bank as a strategic banking partner, it said the bank will serve as an additional card issuing partner for its workforce payments platform.

“Branch and Lead share a commitment to delivering experience-driven financial services and serving as trusted partners that propel innovation,” Branch CEO Atif Siddiqi said in the release.