FTC Co-Leads $11m Investment into Extend

The opportunity to refresh corporate, gig economy, and B2B spend is enormous. In the U.S. alone, employees spend over $1.6 trillion on corporate expenses, with 25% of that going onto personal cards. Gig economy spend represents another $864 billion, and B2B payables represents another $2.7 trillion.

Without Extend, it remains far too difficult to manage employee spend, ensure the security of physical cards, and seamlessly connect expenses with your financial and accounting software.

Extend is solving these problems by bringing virtual credit cards to the workplace at scale. The company has built core infrastructure for banks to distribute virtual card capabilities to their customers. The solution removes the risk of sharing a physical card and enables seamless vendor or freelancer payments. Extend also helps other platforms build virtual cards into their platforms.

Building Extend has required a deep understanding of complex infrastructure within card schemes and banks. Having been high impact executives at American Express focused on business payments, the founders of Extend bring unprecedented domain expertise and the connectivity required to refresh the credit card market.

As seen in recent news, virtual cards is an area which will continue to see major innovation this year.

Welcome to the future of payments.

FORBES, DONNA FUSCALDO

Managing corporate credit cards have long been a costly headache for businesses. Add an explosion of freelancers to the mix and staying on top of it can be a full-time job.

Startup Extend is trying to solve that problem.

Unlike other fintech companies in the business credit card space, Extend partners with issuers rather than trying to disrupt them. Its technology enables companies to instantly issue and control virtual cards and is integrated with Mastercard and Visa. The startup also counts half a dozen banks as strategic partners.

The New York-based fintech, founded in 2017 by Andrew Jamison, Danny Morrow, and Guillaume Bouvard, industry veterans hailing from American Express and Capital One, plans to use proceeds from the round of funding to add new features to its app and open APIs.

Extend has two products: an app for businesses that want to provision credit to contractors and employees and APIs for banks and startups to leverage virtual credit cards.

“Through Extend we built controls so companies have the ability to instantly provision someone a credit card and have control over when and how they can use it,” said Jamison, CEO of Extend.

While virtual credit cards have been around for years, startups like Extend are trying to transform the industry by giving companies more control. Working with banks, its technology is showing up in industries where freelancers and employees need access to cash on the fly.

Virtual credit cards can be used for sports teams traveling with cash, airline operators that have to issue voucher checks, nonprofits like Red Cross and even local and federal government agencies such as FEMA. Parents could use the technology to provision and control credit for their college students while families can use it to send money overseas.

Extend isn’t alone in going after the business market. Marqeta, Stripe, and Brex are big-time players with Brex recently reaching unicorn status. Jamison said Extend is different than its rivals, largely because it is partnering with top tier banks and does not require customers to open a new account.

“The ability to instantly provision someone came to life with the general public with the Apple Card,” said Jamison. “The whole storyline is that cards will start to appear on phones first.” link to full article

FINEXTRA

The firm partners with card issuers so they can deliver advanced virtual card capabilities to their clients. Businesses can use an app to instantly send virtual credit cards to employees and contractors, each with a unique spending limit and validity period, taking control of spend, gaining visibility, and earning rewards.

Extend stresses that it is a card distribution platform, integrating with Visa and Mastercard and building up a partnership network with banks such as City National.

It will use the latest funding to launch new features for its app and open APIs, accelerate bank partnerships, and recruit talent across engineering, marketing, and operations. link to full article

PYMTS

FinTech startup Extend announced it has raised $11 million in Series A financing, as it tries to capitalize on interest in virtual credit cards.

Extend, which was founded in 2017 by American Express and Capital One veterans, provides the technology so companies can provide virtual credit cards to employees and contractors instantly. With the Extend platform, a company can control how much credit is extended, what type of purchases it can be used for and by whom.

“We lead the way for future financial innovation by serving as the layer between FinTech startups and financial institutions, enabling them to better integrate their services for the mutual benefit of their customers,” Extend CEO Andrew Jamison said in the press release.

“Customers across industries want easy-to-use solutions to their payment challenges, such as instantly providing access to a credit card without losing spend control or adding onerous processes. In Extend, we found both the mobile-based technology our clients need combined with a team of industry experts that we wanted to work with,” Vince Hruska, head of enterprise cards at City National Bank, said in the press release.

The fundraising on the part of Extend comes as virtual cards are getting more attention thanks to Amazon’s late March announcement of the Apple Card. The credit card, which will launch in the summer, has zero fees and boasts lower interest rates. Customers apply and get approved via the wallet on their iPhones and get instant access to a virtual card. link to full article