Extend has announced its $11 million Series A financing. Extend's platform enables frictionless virtual credit card issuance for banks, corporations, and other startups. The round was led by Point72 Ventures and FinTech Collective, with additional participation from Reciprocal Ventures and strategic partner City National Bank.

Extend, which is building core infrastructure for the future of payments, is transforming the $1.6 trillion U.S. corporate card industry. Its platform also offers a simple, secure virtual card payment option for the $864 billion U.S. gig economy. Having integrated with both Mastercard and Visa, and already partnered with a half dozen strategic banks, Extend will use the funds to launch new features for its app and open APIs, accelerate bank partnerships, and recruit top-tier talent across engineering, marketing, and operations.

"Growing customer expectations are driving fintech startups and financial institutions to develop and deliver more dynamic, feature-rich digital payments experiences for their customers," said Tripp Shriner, Partner, Point72 Ventures. "Extend's platform enables that innovation and we are thrilled to support the team as they execute on the large opportunity in front of them."

"As companies take increasing advantage of microservices and the gig economy to build their businesses, Extend is building the critical infrastructure that will redefine how corporate credit cards can be distributed to manage these new categories of expenses," added Gareth Jones, co-founder and Managing Partner at FinTech Collective. "As seen in recent news, virtual cards are an area which will continue to see major innovation this year."

Extend partners with card issuers so they can deliver advanced virtual card capabilities to their clients. This allows banks to accelerate innovation and meet client needs. With Extend, businesses can instantly send virtual credit cards to anyone, each with a unique spending limit and validity period, taking control of spend, gaining visibility, and earning rewards.

"Extend allows banks to keep up with the fast pace of the evolving payment landscape. Our cutting-edge capabilities sit seamlessly on top of existing bank card platforms, eliminating traditional technical hurdles to deployment." said Andrew Jamison, CEO of Extend. "We lead the way for future financial innovation by serving as the layer between fintech startups and financial institutions, enabling them to better integrate their services for the mutual benefit of their customers."

"Customers across industries want easy-to-use solutions to their payment challenges, such as instantly providing access to a credit card without losing spend control or adding onerous processes. In Extend, we found both the mobile-based technology our clients need combined with a team of industry experts that we wanted to work with," said Vince Hruska, Head of Enterprise Cards at City National Bank.

About Extend

Extend is a credit card distribution platform, created in partnership with banks and card networks, that enables both cardholders and designated recipients to securely and instantly send and receive temporary virtual credit cards. Extend offers two main products: an app for businesses that want to instantly give their employees and contractors a secure means of payment, and a suite of APIs for incumbents and startups to leverage virtual credit cards. Founded in 2017 by Andrew Jamison, Danny Morrow, and Guillaume Bouvard - industry veterans with decades of experience at Fortune 500 companies, including American Express and Capital One - Extend is headquartered in Manhattan, and has raised $14m to date. For more information visit paywithextend.com.

About Point72 Ventures

Point72 Ventures is a global venture capital firm led by a diverse set of domain experts with the capital to lead rounds through all stages of company growth. The firm invests primarily in Fintech, AI/ML, and Enterprise technologies. As an independent arm of Point72, the global asset management firm led by Steven A. Cohen, Point72 Ventures offers well-informed insights into the global economy. Point72 Ventures has offices in New York City, Palo Alto, San Francisco, and Stamford, Connecticut.

About FinTech Collective

FinTech Collective is a sector-focused venture capital firm, based in New York City and investing globally. The firm was founded in 2012 by Brooks Gibbins and Gareth Jones, who have been working together for close to two decades and who have helped to build and sell four businesses in institutional finance, payments, and enterprise AI. Since inception, FinTech Collective has seeded and helped to build 28 portfolio companies including MoneyLion, Axoni, Vestwell and Embroker. Exits include Quovo acquired by Plaid, Reorg Research acquired by Warburg Pincus, and Openfolio acquired by Stone Ridge Asset Management. The firm is currently investing out of its second fund, a $100m+ early-stage fund with a focus on software, financial services, and crypto. A weekly client newsletter is available at fintech.io/newsletter.

About City National

With $51.1 billion in assets, City National Bank provides banking, investment and trust services through 71 offices, including 19 full-service regional centers, in Southern California, the San Francisco Bay Area, Nevada, New York City, Nashville, Atlanta, Minneapolis and Washington, D.C. In addition, the company and its investment affiliates manage or administer $71.7 billion in client investment assets. City National is a subsidiary of Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), one of North America's leading diversified financial services companies. RBC serves more than 16 million personal, business, public sector and institutional clients through offices in Canada, the United States and 33 other countries. For more information about City National, visit the company's website at cnb.com.