Mercury hits $5.2 billion valuation as fintech firm banks on AI startups

May 20 (Reuters) - Mercury said connected Wednesday it had raised $200 cardinal astatine a $5.2 cardinal valuation successful its latest backing round, led by concern ‌firm TCV, arsenic it seeks to pull AI-native founders and businesses ‌as banking clients.

Global task backing has remained beardown successful caller quarters, with a sizable information directed ​toward companies integrating AI with their operations, arsenic investors expect coagulated exit opportunities.

Existing investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue, CRV, Sapphire Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Spark Capital participated successful Mercury's latest round.

The company's co-founder and CEO Immad Akhund said AI was helping ‌companies constrictive the spread ⁠between ideas and viable businesses, creating opportunities for Mercury to vie successful a marketplace dominated by bequest banks.

It operates done spouse ⁠banks and does not person its ain charter, the instauration of which would let it to integrate Zelle, a integer payments network, enabling Mercury to connection a broad ​banking ​solution for its halfway idiosyncratic basal of ​founders and startups.

The institution received conditional ‌approval successful April from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to found Mercury Bank, a afloat chartered nationalist lender that would alteration it to connection services straight to customers nether afloat national oversight.

Mercury, which was acceptable up to service exertion startups, besides said it had achieved 4 consecutive years of ‌profitability connected a GAAP nett income arsenic good ​as EBITDA basis. It has reached $650 cardinal successful ​annualized revenue.

It said it has ​more than 300,000 customers, including 1 successful 3 U.S. startups, ‌with clients specified arsenic backend-as-a-service supplier ​Supabase, dependable AI level ​ElevenLabs and coding level Lovable.

"We judge the adjacent procreation of entrepreneurs volition beryllium AI autochthonal and volition request a banking spouse that helps them ​run their finances and ‌build astatine the gait AI itself is setting," said Neil Tolaney, ​General Partner astatine TCV. "We spot Mercury arsenic that partner."

(Reporting by Pritam ​Biswas successful Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai)