FinTech News
Embedded Finance Platform Pipe Raises $16 Million
A FinTech offering embedded financial solutions built for small businesses has raised a new round of funding.
About Pipe’s Funding Round:
Recently, Pipe revealed that it raised another $16 million. The unspecified venture round was led by Fin Capital and MaC Venture Capital. Notably, Fin Capital also led the FinTech’s seed round back in 2020.
According to Pipe, this is the company’s first equity raise since 2024, when it relaunched its embedded finance product. Since then, Pipe Capital has originated more than $300 million in advances to over 15,000 small businesses. Pipe has also expanded its capital warehouse facility with Victory Park Capital for up to $225 million.
In addition to Pipe Capital, the company also offers Card and Spend Management products, such as Pipe Business Cards — although these can be fully white-labelled to match a company’s brand. The cards themselves are actually charge cards and are issued by First Internet Bank of Indiana.
What They’re Saying:
Commenting on Pipe’s start and its current state, the company’s CEO Claurelle Rakipovic said in a statement, “Pipe has built the infrastructure that small business financing should have had from the start; AI-native, partner-embedded, and easily accessible for the tens of thousands of businesses that have been told for too long they’re not worthy of capital. Pipe has kept its ambition while operating with a clear focus on the customer and fiscal discipline. That combination puts us in a powerful position.”
Commenting directly on the funding round, Rakipovic added, “This new capital gives us the fuel to move faster on what’s already working as we continue to create a better future for small businesses.”
On the other end of the transaction, Fin Capital founder/managing partner and Pipe board of directors member Logan Allin said, “Pipe has shown strong and consistent growth in the last two years since launching Pipe Capital, with a best-in-class product serving a small business community underserved by traditional capital sources. Pipe’s continued origination and revenue growth, coupled with its operating discipline as a company give us strong belief that it will continue to stand out in a competitive market.”
My Thoughts:
Looking at Pipe’s funding history on Crunchbase, it paints a bit of a confusing picture for me. For example, the company apparently raised a $250 million venture round in 2021… and is now doing unspecified rounds of just $16 million? That strikes me as odd. Similarly, I’m not sure if Fin Capital sticking with the company from its seed round and adding more capital now is an endorsement or the sunk cost fallacy in action. Can we also all agree that they have a terrible name?
Surely there’s a lot more to Pipe than the numbers suggest, but I’ll be very interested to see where the FinTech goes from here.