Daragh Murphy isn’t building an AI company. But he still wants his startup, Imprint, to grow like one.
Imprint’s core business is co-branded credit cards – think the cards you’re offered by airlines, retailers and grocery chains to spend more with them in exchange for special offers and rewards.
When I first wrote about Imprint three years ago for Forbes, Imprint had recently signed Texas supermarket H-E-B and raised funding at a $240 million valuation. It’s come a long way since: bringing on two top 10 U.S. retailers in Albertsons and Kroger, as well as Shell.
Back then, Murphy talked a big game, but his startup only had about 15,000 cardholders. That number is more than two million now. And what he’s most proud about: lean growth – the company expects to end the year at about $400 million in GAAP revenue, up 150% – without commensurate spend (head count growth of just 30%).
“I don’t think there’s another fintech beyond Ramp that’s growing at the speed and scale that we’re growing at,” Murphy tells me now.
To double down on its momentum, Imprint has dipped into the investor well again. The startup has raised $130 million in new funding at a $1.88 billion valuation, Murphy tells Upstarts exclusively, up from a previous valuation of $1.2 billion.
Positive Sum, the VC firm co-founded by Invest Like The Best host Patrick O’Shaughnessy, joins Imprint’s cap table, alongside existing investors including Ribbit, Thrive, Kleiner Perkins, and Khosla Ventures.
But there’s more to Imprint’s story than just growth. Imprint finds itself at the center of two key trends affecting retailers and big businesses in America today.
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