Plaid raises funding at $6 billion valuation, enabling some employees to cash out
Plaid announced a new funding round that values the fintech company at less than half of its peak price tag four years ago.
The $575 million round was led by a batch of new investors including Franklin Templeton, Fidelity and BlackRock. Existing backers NEA and Ribbit Capital also participated, Plaid said.
Plaid CEO Zach Perret said the startup saw a "substantial" growth year with record revenue and positive operating margins, though he did not provide specifics. The downsized valuation is a reflection of market conditions, he said.
"The reality is our business is much stronger and revenue has grown quite substantially," Perret told CNBC. "The profitability of business has gotten quite a lot better, and yet we are impacted by market multiples, as many companies are."
Plaid is "not ready" for an initial public offering quite yet, but this round will be the last private fundraise until the company lists on public markets, he said.
"An IPO is absolutely on our path for the coming years. We haven't assigned a specific timeline to it," Perret said. "We still have a lot of internal work to do. We're not ready, which is why we didn't consider it right now."
Rise of secondary rounds
Plaid's new funding allows employees to cash out of restricted stock units that expire at the end of the year. The startup will also use a portion of the proceeds to enable an employee tender offer.