Unit raises $100 million Series C at $1.2 billion valuation for banking-as-a-service platform
Unit raises $100 million Series C at $1.2 billion valuation for banking-as-a-service platform
The Israeli startup helps accelerate time to market and enables companies to launch bank accounts, cards, payment, and lending products in weeks
Unit, which has developed a banking-as-a-service platform that enables companies to embed financial services in their products, announced on Tuesday that it has raised $100 million in a Series C round led by global software investor Insight Partners, with participation from existing investors including Accel, Better Tomorrow Ventures, Aleph, Flourish Ventures, and TLV Partners. New investors Moving Capital and Stepstone also joined the round.
The latest infusion of capital brings total funding raised by Unit to $169.6 million with a valuation of $1.2 billion, establishing the company as the first banking-as-service platform to reach unicorn status. Unit’s revenue is still not high and is set to reach $10 million annually in the coming months.
Unit was founded at the end of 2019 by CTO Doron Somech and CEO Itai Damti. Both Somech and Damti were co-founders of fintech company Leverate.
Unit helps accelerate time to market and enables companies to launch bank accounts, cards, payment, and lending products in weeks. The company will be launching business credit cards in the next three months with additional lending products including cash advance, invoice factoring, and early wage access to follow.
“To reach a unicorn status at this time is an achievement but it isn’t everything for us,” Damti told Calcalist. “The term unicorn was diluted last year, but in a time like this, it does represent a vote of confidence in the company. We believe the financial services sector is undergoing historic change and believe that this will be a long process. We think that every financial product we consume will be embedded into software products. The line between fintech and software will be blurred in the future.”
Unit plans to use the funding to double its workforce, and in particular, expand its R&D center in Israel. Unit has onboarded more than 140 customers including AngelList, HoneyBook, Veryable, Roofstock, Hearth, and Benepass. Over the last six months alone, Unit has seen transaction volume grow 7x, crossing an annualized transaction volume of $2.6 billion, issued over 430,000 cards to over 330,000 end-customers, and saw a 10x increase in deposit volumes.
