Plaid stockpiles funding with investments by JPMorgan, American Express

The data aggregator Plaid has received an undisclosed amount of additional funding from JPMorgan Private Capital Growth Equity Partners and existing investor Amex Ventures.

The investments add to a $425 million Series D round that Plaid announced in April. Plaid's $13.8 billion valuation remains unchanged as it prepares to work with more banks, according to a source close to the company.

New York-based JPMorgan Private Capital Equity Partners was established two months ago as part of JPMorgan Asset Management, an investment arm of JPMorgan Chase. Amex Ventures, the venture capital unit of American Express, has been in operation since 2011 and has invested in more than 70 technology startups.

"Both J.P. Morgan’s Growth Equity Partners and American Express will be critical in our effort to enable great financial outcomes for consumers and drive innovation in the industry," Zach Perret, co-founder and CEO of Plaid, said in a blog post about the additional funding. "These are storied companies intrinsic to the fabric of financial services, and are important partners."

For Amex Ventures, the extra funding marked a continuation of support it first provided as an investor in Plaid's Series B funding round, when "it was clear they were the financial data partner of choice for developers," said Lindsay Fitzgerald, managing director of Amex Ventures.

Amex Ventures and Citi Ventures, New York-based Citigroup's venture capital group, were part of an extension of a $44 million Series B round led by Goldman Sachs Investment Partners.

“Since then, Plaid has become essential fintech infrastructure, propelling a new generation of applications to market faster," Fitzgerald noted. "We are thrilled to once again support Plaid’s growth, as they continue to innovate and power a better consumer experience in financial services.”

The funding announced Tuesday continues momentum for Plaid, which opened 2021 with the termination of a planned merger with Visa, about a year after the card network announced a $5.3 billion deal to acquire the data aggregator that quickly came under Department of Justice scrutiny. Visa lawyers defended the merger against DOJ concerns about potential antitrust violations, but both companies ultimately decided to shelve the merger plans.

Plaid hit its $13.4 billion valuation not long after the Visa plans were scrapped, aided by the $425 million funding round involving Altimeter Capital and new investors Silver Lake and Ribbit Capital.

Goldman Sachs, Citi Ventures, Visa and Mastercard also continue to be investors in Plaid.

"As we look to support the massive growth in fintech, we’ll be accelerating our investments in building products that enable an open, easy to use, and secure financial services ecosystem," Perret said. "While we’re still in the early innings of the digital transformation in financial services, we’re excited to work with the thousands of banks, fintechs and non-financial institutions in our network to create what’s next."

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