Marqeta raises $150m for card issuing platform, takes valuation to $4.3bn

US fintech company Marqeta, which is engaged in providing a platform for issuing debit and credit cards, has bagged an investment of $150 million from an undisclosed institutional investor.

The new investment, which is expected to help in product momentum and global growth, has taken the valuation of Marqeta to $4.3 billion.

The card issuing platform of the California-based payment processing company helps businesses in developing, iterating, and launching commercial-scale payment solutions.

Marqeta’s platform enables businesses to issue their own physical, virtual, and tokenized payment cards. The platform also gives flexibility for single or multi-use debit and credit cards.

The company’s open API is said to give the control, scale, and insight that developers would need to create their payment experience and at the same time, easing the complexity of legacy issuer processors.

Marqeta raises $150m for card issuing platform, takes valuation to $4.3bn. Photo courtesy of Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.

Jason Gardner – founder and CEO of Marqeta said: “Marqeta continues to move forward from strength to strength in 2020 as our global modern card issuing platform provides essential infrastructure and support to our customers across industries and oceans.

“We’re building a single global platform to define and power the future of money for the world’s leading innovators. This new capital helps us accelerate our mission to empower builders to bring the most innovative products to market, wherever they are in the world.”

Marqeta, which was established about ten years ago, claims to be the first global modern card issuing platform and says that it has supported innovators such as Square, Uber, DoorDash, Instacart, and Affirm with the necessary infrastructure and tools they needed for developing highly configurable payment solutions.

By the end of 2019, the payment processing company had seen more than 140 million cards issued using its card issuing platform.

Marqeta also has operations in Europe, Canada, and Australia and is certified for processing payments across 10 APAC countries.

In May 2019, the US fintech company raised $260 million in equity financing led by technology sector hedge fund Coatue with Vitruvian Partners and others also taking part.

Other backers of Marqeta have been Visa, Goldman Sachs, 83North, Granite Ventures, and ICONIQ Capital.

Jason Gardner added: “The transformative possibilities of modern card issuing are more commonplace than ever for the everyday consumer in 2020. Marqeta has a deep commitment to powering the innovators driving these shifts in the market and is well-positioned to support the current surge in demand for digital payments following COVID-19 lockdowns.

“We see Marqeta becoming an indispensable part of the global payments infrastructure, and we’re in a solid position to realize that vision for our company.”