Ramp, which provides a corporate card and spend management platform, announced $150 million in debt financing from banking giant Goldman Sachs.
Specifically, Goldman Sachs Bank USA provided the credit line to the New York-based startup. Ramp, which was launched in February 2020, provides a corporate card that aims to help businesses spend less and automate their finances.
Ramp CEO Eric Glyman told FinLedger in an interview that the company is like “Amex meets Expensify.” He explained that a large purpose of the debt financing is to fund future customer purchases on Ramp.
“The first [reason] is empowering customers, ensuring we can grow the size of the business, even offering larger limits all the way up to $10 million per month for some companies,” Glyman said. “The second [reason] has to do with how it frees capital up for Ramp to invest even further in growth.”
Historically speaking, Glyman explained how Ramp has doubled the size of the team about every six months and now nearly has 100 employees. The company expects to hire about 100 more employees in 2021 across all departments.
The fintech startup specifically raised the financing in debt instead of equity because it helps with the scalability of the company’s business model and Glyman said it ensures the company is “able to make larger limits available for customers who need it, it’s just much more scalable .”
Since the company was founded, it has raised $150 million in debt and $50 million in equity. In 2020 alone Ramp was able to identify more than $10 million in savings for its customers to help cut spending. It helps the average customer reduce wasteful spending by over $100,000 per year, Glyman said.
Although Glyman wouldn’t disclose exact revenue figures, he did say that Ramp has experienced 6,000% in revenue growth and has consistently grown in double digits monthly in both revenue and transactions.
“Eight Sleep previously relied on American Express for its corporate card and Expensify as our expense management system,” Eight Sleep CEO Matteo Franceschetti said in a press release. “Ramp was a complete game changer. It’s a single platform that can handle every aspect of our spending – including things that aren’t paid for with a card. This has led to immense savings – both in terms of dollars and time – for our finance team. Given our success with the product so far, it’s no surprise to see the company is growing the way it is.”
Going forward, the company expects to release software that helps customers see even more savings and further streamline all types of B2B payments.
The recent news comes after Ramp also tapped Srinath Srinivasan as Head of Risk at Ramp last month. Previously, Srinivasan worked at Goldman Sachs and was involved with developing credit underwriting for the Apple Card. Additionally, Nik Koblov, who previously worked at Affirm as the VP of Engineering, also was appointed to Ramp to lead its Risk and Underwriting Engineering. Koblov also previously served as credit technology VP at Goldman Sachs.
In other corporate card news, Mastercard announced in late November 2020 a mobile virtual card offering aimed at its corporate customers. The card – introduced with partners TSYS and Extend – is designed to allow for virtual corporate cards to be easily loaded into a mobile wallet “for fast and secure contactless payments.”
Meanwhile, San Francisco Bay Area fintech heavyweights — Plastiq and Tipalti — will enable businesses to use their corporate credit cards to pay suppliers even if those suppliers don’t accept credit cards.