Ramp ended its red-hot summer with one more coup. The six-year-old fintech startup hit $1 billion in annualized revenue as of the end of August, according to a person familiar with the company’s finances—a figure that looks less shocking next to the whopping $22.5 billion valuation it notched in July in an Iconiq-led funding round.
Ramp has been on the kind of tear usually reserved for AI startups, which the company is starting to resemble. Eric Glyman and Karim Atiyeh founded the company in 2019 to upend the corporate credit card market, which challengers like Brex were already trying to wrest away from American Express and Chase.
While Brex and Ramp spent the frothy days of the pandemic in close competition—the Lyft and Uber of corporate cards—Ramp has pulled away in recent years due to its push into other CFO-suite products, including expense management and travel, as well as its near-omnipresent branding. (That has included a Super Bowl spot featuring All-Pro Philadelphia Eagles running back and Ramp investor Saquon Barkley, as well as the blaring chyron sponsorship of tech podcast TBPN.)
Ramp’s dominance was driven home by a one-two punch of funding announcements this summer: a Series E led by Founders Fund, announced in June, that valued the startup at $16 billion; followed the next month by the Iconiq-led Series E-2. Even as other fintech startups remain mired in downrounds or stuck with their COVID-era valuations, Ramp has managed to convince investors to treat it like an AI lab.
Ramp’s rapid growth, as evidenced by its billion-dollar revenue mark, is part of its ballooning sticker tag. According to TechCrunch, Ramp previously hit $700 million in annualized revenue in March, more than doubling its earlier benchmark of $300 million in August 2023. But the startup’s embrace of AI has also driven investor elation. In July, Ramp introduced its first set of AI agents, which ingest a company’s expense policies and automatically approve employee receipts.
Whether the company can continue to expand beyond the lower-margin arena of credit-card interchange fees and into the promised land of software-as-a-service subscriptions will determine its future success, as well as whether it can compete with Brex’s international expansion. But for now, Ramp has a new crown to hang alongside its $22.5 billion valuation.
Figma earnings… Figma CEO Dylan Field spoke to Fortune about AI and the future of design as the design software company reported its first earnings as a public company. Read the whole story here.
See you tomorrow,
Leo Schwartz
X: @leomschwartz
Email: [email protected]
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VENTURE DEALS
– Enveda, a Boulder, Colo. and Hyderabad, India-based drug developer, raised $150 million in Series D funding. Premji Invest led the round and was joined by Baillie Gifford, Kinnevik, Lingotto Investment Management, Peakline Partners, FPV, Socium Ventures, Dimension, Level Ventures, Henry Kravis, IA Ventures, and Lux Capital.
– You.com, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based developer of digital infrastructure for agentic AI, raised $100 million in Series C funding. Cox Enterprises led the round and was joined by existing investors Georgian, Salesforce Ventures, and Norwest.
– ViCentra, a Utrecht, The Netherlands-based developer of the Kaleido insulin pump patch, raised $85 million in Series D funding. Innovation Industries, Partners in Equity, and Invest-NL led the round and were joined by EQT Life Sciences and Health Innovations.
– Orchard Robotics, a San Francisco-based developer of technology designed to automate farming processes, raised $22 million in Series A funding. Quiet Capital and Shine Capital led the round and were joined by General Catalyst, Contrary, Mythos, Valyrian, Ravelin, and others.
– Reggora, a Boston, Mass.-based real estate appraisal platform, raised $18 million in funding. Centana Growth Partners led the round and was joined by others.
– Xampla, a Cambridge, U.K.-based manufacturer of plant-based alternatives to single-use plastic, raised $14 million in Series A funding. Emerald Technology Ventures, BGF, and Matterwave Ventures led the round and were joined by existing investors Amadeus Capital Partners and Horizons Ventures.
– Supersonik, a Barcelona, Spain and San Francisco-based developer of a multilingual AI agent for sales demos, raised $5 million in seed funding. Andreessen Horowitz led the round and was joined by angel investors.
PRIVATE EQUITY
– Qodea, a portfolio company of Marlin Equity Partners, acquired TIQQE, an Örebro, Sweden-based cloud technology company. Financial terms were not disclosed.
– Specialty Appliances, a portfolio company of Reynolda Equity Partners, acquired Brewer Dental Laboratory, a Tulsa, Okla.-based specialty dental lab. Financial terms were not disclosed.
– Syndigo, backed by Summit Partners, acquired 1WorldSync, a Chicago, Ill.-based product content orchestration platform. Financial terms were not disclosed.
– Tropolis Insurance Services, backed by Unity Partners, acquired eight insurance agencies across Michigan, Texas, and Louisiana: Warrendale Insurance Agency, U.P. Insurance Agency, Entrust Insurance and Financial Services, Canopy Insurance Group, Infiniti Insurance Services, King Phillips Insurance, Beasley Keith Insurance, and Safe Harbor Insurance. Financial terms were not disclosed.
– Vision Ridge Partners acquired Pelican Energy TCI (formerly FortisTCI), a Turks and Caicos-based power supply company. Financial terms were not disclosed.
IPOS
– Via, a New York City-based rideshare platform for local governments, plans to raise up to $470.8 million in an offering of 10.7 million shares priced between $40 and $44. The company posted $381 million in revenue for the year ended June 30. Exor, 83North, Kelvin Investments, Pitango, and Ramot Trust back the company.
– Neptune Insurance Holdings, a St. Petersburg, Fla.-based flood insurance company, filed to go public on the New York Stock Exchange. The company posted $137 million in revenue for the year ended June 30. Bregal Sagemount, FTV Capital, Trevor Burgess, James D. Albert, and Wilbur L. Martin back the company.
EXITS
– GovCIO, a portfolio company of Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, acquired Iron Bow Technologies, a Herndon, Va.-based IT solutions provider, from H.I.G. Capital. Financial terms were not disclosed.
FUNDS + FUNDS OF FUNDS
– Great Hill Partners, a Boston, Mass. and London, U.K.-based private equity firm, raised $7 billion for its ninth fund focused on companies in the software, financial services, healthcare, consumer, and business services sectors.
PEOPLE
– MiddleGround Capital, a Lexington, Ky.-based private equity firm, hired Tim Curley as managing director. Formerly, he was with BMO Capital Markets.
