- Bond Financial Technologies announced it has raised $10 million in seed funding and exited stealth mode
Bond Financial Technologies — a company that recently exited stealth with an enterprise-grade financial technology platform — announced it raised $10 million in seed funding to accelerate the pace of fintech innovation. The company essentially connects digital brands to banking partners without friction.
The seed round of funding was led by Canaan with participation from Coatue and angel investors including Sarah Friar, Steve Freiberg, Ryan Petersen, and Eric S. Yuan. This round of funding will be used to support Bond’s development of its machine learning-based platform and expand its reach with banks, fintechs, and brand partners.
“Until now, the friction between brands and banks has stifled the pace of financial innovation and access to capital,” said Bond co-founder and CEO Roy Ng. “Bond enables banks of all sizes to more effectively compete for and partner with technology innovators, ultimately improving access to capital for everyday consumers and businesses.”
What Bond wants to do is become a growth engine for digital brands that want to provide access to capital to their customers along with helping its banking partners grow by providing the underlying financial services as the fintech revolution accelerates.
“Bond is set to become a category-defining platform,” added Canaan partner Michael B. Gilroy. “We’ve long believed that eventually all brands will become fintechs, and yet no solution today is compliant, scalable and makes fintech innovation efficient for brands and banks alike. We’re thrilled to partner with Roy and this team of industry veterans to build this platform. As the first institutional investors in Lending Club, Canaan has been deep in fintech since its earliest days and we’re proud to have incubated this all-star team.”
Bond’s three co-founders are Ng, VP of Technology Matthew Bradley, and VP of Data Science & Operations Yan Wu. Between the three of them, they were executives at BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, SAP, SoFi, and Twilio.
Ng was previously the COO and Twilio and more recently worked as the President and COO of Mapbox. Bradley was previously a founding member and VP of Machine Learning at Synapse and EIR at the Founder Institute. And Wu spent 15 years at the intersection of technology and financial services including the Head of Data at SoFi and VP of Analytics at BlackRock.
“Bond will empower a new wave of banks and brands, big and small, to open up whole new markets. We’re excited by Roy and this team of industry veterans who have come together to build this platform, re-define the fintech ecosystem and provide a new model that reshapes how banks, brands and regulators can work together to promote financial services innovation and inclusion,” explained Coatue co-founder Thomas Laffont.
Bond’s advisors include LendingClub Chief Risk and Chef Audit and Compliance Officer Tim Bogan, Honey president Joanne Bradford, and The Lawsky Group CEO Ben Lawsky.
