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Exclusive: Octane Lands $100M Series F At $1.3B Valuation To Help People Finance Large Lifestyle And Recreational Purchases
Octane, a startup that offers “instant” financing for large recreational and lifestyle purchases, has raised $100 million in a Series F round with a post-money valuation of $1.3 billion, it tells Crunchbase News exclusively. Repeat backer Valar Ventures led the raise, which included participation from Upper90, Huntington National Bank, Camping World, Holler-Classic Family and others. Half of the raise was primary financing, and the other half went toward a secondary share sale to provide existing shareholders, including current and former employees, liquidity, according to CEO and co-founder Jason Guss. Prior to this round, New York-based Octane had raised $242 million in funding — not including debt financing — since it was founded in 2014, according to Guss. The company says it has also completed $4.7 billion in asset-backed securitizations since 2019. Octane’s latest round comes amid a busy period for fintech investment overall: Global venture funding to financial technology startups in 2025 has, as of Dec. 11, reached $49.4 billion across 3,545 deals, per Crunchbase data. That’s a 30% increase in dollars raised compared to the $38 billion raised across 4,630 deals during the same time period in 2024. Octane started as a secured point-of-sale lender to give consumers more financing options for powersports items such as motorcycles, ATVs and snowmobiles. It has since expanded into the RV, marine, mower, tractor, trailer and auto markets. And it has also evolved its model to include a white-label captive lending platform, dubbed “Captive-as-a-Service,” that allows retailers and manufacturers to offer financing to their customers under the brand of their choice. Jason Guss, CEO and co-founder of Octane. Courtesy photo. “Captive-as-a-Service brings together technology, underwriting, loan processing and servicing, and capital markets execution in a single platform under the partner’s chosen brand,” Guss told Crunchbase News. The advantage for the retailer, he said, is to give them a way to diversify their revenue streams, build long-term enterprise value, and strengthen their customer retention. The company has various partnerships with OEMs, or original equipment manufacturers, and dealer partners in the markets it serves. It also offers a variety of products, such as Octane Prequal and Prequal Flex, designed to help retailers land customers. “A lot of VCs believe SaaS companies should just focus on pure tech and lenders should just do lending,” Guss said. “We believe that the best companies need to do both. … By offering various services typically not offered by lenders integrated with a lending product, we are able to add value beyond simply selling money cheaper.” Growing reach Refreshingly, Octane is open to providing some details on its financials. The startup says it was GAAP net income profitable in 2021, 2023 and 2024. Guss projects the company will have about $80 million in adjusted EBITDA for 2025. Since its inception, Octane has generated over $7.5 billion in loans. In 2024, it originated over $1.6 billion in loans and is on pace to originate over $2.1 billion this year, according to Guss. It has over 4,000 dealer partners, and works with over 60 original equipment manufacturing brand partners. Presently, it has over 600 employees. The company makes money through platform fees, paid by either merchants or OEM partners primarily for promotional financing. It also makes money by selling loans, through servicing income and performance fees. For loans it holds it earns interest income. Guss believes that some fintechs are “afraid” to admit they are a lender or “avoid it entirely because some VCs believe lending is bad.” “Lending isn’t bad, bad lending is bad,” he said. “Good lending is one of the oldest and most robust business models in the world.” Looking ahead, Guss believes Octane can provide value to any market where consumers make a large-ticket purchase and where retailers and manufacturers can benefit from owning and integrating their own financial products. For his part, Valar founding partner James Fitzgerald described Octane’s offering, which combines software and financing products, as “unique.” “We expect Octane to continue to take market share — both in its existing markets and in those it’s only begun to enter — for a very long time,” he said in a release. “One of the investing lessons of the past two decades is that the best tech companies can compound for far longer than expected.” Related Crunchbase query: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Security And Energy Deals Top The List
Want to keep track of the largest startup funding deals in 2025 with our curated list of $100 million-plus venture deals to U.S.-based companies? Check out The Crunchbase Megadeals Board. This is a weekly feature that runs down the week’s top 10 announced funding rounds in the U.S. Check out last week’s biggest funding deal roundup here. Startup investors this week demonstrated continued willingness to write big checks for promising companies in sought-after areas. Leading the pack was Saviynt, an AI identity security platform that picked up a fresh $700 million. The next three largest rounds — Unconventional AI, Fervo Energy and Boom Supersonic — all shared some focus on energy. The rest of the list included companies in AI, biotech and space tech. 1. Saviynt, $700M, AI identity security: Saviynt, a provider of AI-optimized identity security tools, announced that it secured $700 million in Series B financing. KKR led the round, which set a $3 billion valuation for the 15-year-old, El Segundo, California-based company. 2. Unconventional AI, $475M, AI energy efficiency: Unconventional AI, a startup designing a computer to optimize energy efficiency for AI, raised $475 million in seed funding. Andreessen Horowitz and Lightspeed Venture Partners led the financing for the San Francisco Bay Area company. 3. Fervo Energy, $462M, geothermal energy: Houston-based Fervo Energy, a developer and operator of geothermal energy projects with a focus on technologies to scale this power source, picked up $462 million in Series E funding led by B Capital. The funding will go toward a geothermal project in Western Utah as well as other projects in its pipeline. 4. Boom Supersonic, $300M, fast airplanes, turbines: Boom Supersonic, a Denver company working to build what it says will be the world’s fastest airliner, closed on $300 million led by Darsana Capital Partners. In addition to its planes, Boom is also attracting investor interest for its Superpower natural gas turbine that can also have applications in delivering energy to AI data centers. 5. K2 Space, $250M, space tech: Torrance, California-based K2 Space, developer of a platform for building large, high-power satellites, landed $250 million in Series C funding. Redpoint led the round, which set a $3 billion valuation for the company, which was founded in 2022. 6. Harness, $240M, software development: Harness, a developer of tools to automate and simplify software delivery processes, raised $200 million in Series E funding and $40 million in a planned tender to provide liquidity to long-term employees. Goldman Sachs led the Series E, which set a $5.5 billion valuation for the 8-year-old company. 7. Impulse Dynamics, $158M, medical devices: Marlton, New Jersey-based Impulse Dynamics, a medical device company focused on patients with heart failure, secured over $158 million in a funding round led by Sands Capital Ventures and Braidwell. The financing follows an announcement from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services extending coverage for its device. 8. Fal, $140M, generative AI: Fal, developer of a real-time generative AI platform for video, images, 3D and audio, picked up $140 million in a Series D financing Led by Sequoia Capital. The round was the third this year for San Francisco-based Fal, which closed a Series C in July and a Series B in February. 9. Sanegene Bio, $110M, biotech: Sanegene Bio, a biotech startup focused on developing RNAi-based therapeutics, said it raised over $110 million in Series B funding from a long list of venture investors. Founded in 2021, the startup is headquartered in Boston with significant operations in China. 10. BlossomHill Therapeutics, $84M, biotech: San Diego-based BlossomHill Therapeutics, a developer of medicines to treat cancer, pulled in $84 million in Series B extension funding. Janus Henderson Investors, Brahma Capital and BioTrack Capital led the financing for the 5-year-old company. Methodology We tracked the largest announced rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of Dec. 6-12. Although most announced rounds are represented in the database, there could be a small time lag as some rounds are reported late in the week. Illustration: Dom Guzman
Seed Funding In 2025 Broke Records Around Big Rounds And AI, With US Far In The Lead
The idea of a new normal arising in seed funding presumes there was once an old normal. But of course, there was not. The only real consistency about the asset class is it’s reliably volatile. Sectors in vogue one year are out a few quarters later. Angel syndicates must increasingly compete with venture big shots. And founders who secure the biggest rounds can’t assume more capital is en route. For 2025, the seed investment environment exhibited its typical quirkiness, with a few trends standing out. In particular, it was a huge year for huge rounds. Predictably, it was also a banner period for AI dealmaking. And in geographic trends, we saw the U.S. pull in a bigger-than-usual share of total investment. Below, we take a look at each of these trends in greater detail. No. 1: A huge year for huge rounds The concept of a seed round being very small is rather retro. Today, both eight- and nine-figure rounds are reasonably common, especially for a startup with highly regarded founders, expertise in a hot sector, and an early technological advantage. For 2025, investors have backed close to 700 seed-stage rounds of $10 million or more, per Crunchbase data. That puts this category on track to hit an all-time high. It was also a record-setting year for really, really huge seed rounds. By this, we mean financings of $100 million or more — once unheard of, but now not that uncommon. We kept the dataset of these deals to U.S. startups for simpler vetting. But even with this limit, the total was enormous — topping $3.6 billion this year, a new record. However, keep in mind: most of the rise was due to a single round. This was the $2 billion seed financing for Thinking Machines Lab, the AI startup co-founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati. This month, another giant deal also boosted the totals, a $475 million financing for Unconventional AI, which is designing a computer to optimize energy efficiency for AI. No. 2: Another banner year for AI Seed investors poured money into AI startups at a more exuberant pace than even last year, which was already record-setting. For 2025 so far, over 42% of all global seed funding has gone to companies in artificial intelligence-focused industry categories, per Crunchbase data. That’s up from 30% in 2024. The numbers have also gotten bigger. Just over $15 billion has gone to AI-focused seed rounds this year, per Crunchbase, up about 50% from 2024. Below, we take a look at AI investment total and share for the past six years. No. 3: Half of seed funding goes to US companies Besides pouring money into AI, investors also increasingly concentrated their bets in U.S.-based companies. American startups pulled in close to $18 billion in total seed funding so far this year, which accounted for about half of all global seed investment, per Crunchbase data. That’s the largest share in years. As you can see in the chart below, U.S. startups pulled in well over 40% of all seed investment in each of the past six years. But 2025 is the only year that it’s just shy of half. We can point to the giant AI seed rounds mentioned above as the differentiating factor. A robust year that supersized the notion of seed Overall, we can point to 2025 as a robust year for seed spending, but also a period of heightened consolidation among perceived early winners. Given that venture returns are driven largely by a handful of huge winning bets, it’s not shocking to see investors clustering around the few upstarts that seem best poised to deliver those. Still, it’s a bit disruptive to the classic idea of the seed round as a small wager on a promising founding team. As always, we’re rooting for the most recent class of seed-funded startups to grow into greatness. For many, however, they won’t have much other choice, as a quick, small exit isn’t an option when you’re already at a nine- or 10-figure valuation. Related Crunchbase query: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
The Founder’s Dilemma In The Age of AI: Working Toward Singularity
Editor’s note: This column is the final installment in a three-part series. Read part one here and part two here. By Mark Himmelsbach and Remy Pinson We like to think markets naturally align incentives over time. Maybe they will. But transitions always involve friction, and AI has accelerated the friction point between economic and human interests. AI didn’t create the tension between efficiency and decency, but it intensified and accelerated it. And even if AI doesn’t replace jobs wholesale, it will reshape them, compress them and fundamentally change the human-machine ratio inside companies. Mark Himmelsbach Which means leaders must answer a new question: How do we build a culture that keeps humans valued and motivated while leveraging machines fully? A hybrid human-machine organization requires rethinking almost everything: norms, rituals, contributions, trust dynamics, leadership models and more. Culture has always been the stabilizer that holds companies together. Now it must evolve. Below are the cultural imperatives we believe will define organizations that navigate this transition well. Remy Pinson Five cultural imperatives for the human-machine era 1. Build a culture of hybrid identity. Not human-first or AI-first, but hybrid. Humans bring judgment, creativity, empathy, taste and leadership. AI brings speed, scale, memory and tireless iteration. A culture that values both reduces fear and increases clarity. 2. Establish trust norms between humans and machines. Teams need to know when to rely on AI, when to challenge it, and how to collaborate with it. Trust must be explicit and expressed — not assumed or hidden. 3. Redefine contribution and recognition. If AI plays a meaningful role in output, recognition must shift too. Don’t just reward production. Reward insight, direction, taste, judgment, strategy and creative authorship. 4. Preserve belonging as leverage increases. Smaller teams can still be human-centered — but only with transparency, clear purpose and rituals that reinforce connection. Humans’ need for belonging must be intentionally designed. 5. Build culture early. Cultural debt accumulates faster than technical debt. Leaders who design norms early — around language, expectations, rituals and trust — will avoid confusion and resentment. I think about this constantly. Our company is one small version of what’s happening across industries. Efficiency is accelerating, roles are evolving and culture is stretching into something new. But I’m optimistic. History suggests we eventually find equilibrium with transformational new technologies. Perhaps it will even be a version like the one Ray Kurzweil imagines as “the Singularity” — where humans and machines truly elevate one another. Until then, we’re committed to building a culture where the efficient thing and the decent thing can coexist. Where machines do what they’re best at, humans do the same, and the space between them becomes a new source of creativity and possibility. We believe it, we’re building for it, and we’ll stand by it until proven otherwise. Mark Himmelsbach is the co-founder of the world’s newest creative AI marketing tool, RYA. He’s also the co-founder of Episode Four, an advertising agency that leverages data to make hits for Visa, Invesco QQQ, Charles Schwab, AT&T and many other marquee brands. Over the past two decades he has led cross-functional teams and developed multidiscipline communications and creative strategies for both for-profit and nonprofit organizations. Himmelsbach is a MBA graduate from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Remy Pinson is head of business development at WestComms. He strongly believes that high-quality communication will only continue to appreciate in value and supports clients working in AI, crypto and frontier technologies. Pinson still keeps a regular hand-written journal, loves wine and earned a degree in economics and philosophy at Claremont McKenna College in California.
Sector Snapshot: Insurtech Funding Is Way Down, But AI Is Still Driving Some Big Deals
For obvious reasons, insurance-related technology isn’t exactly one of the sexiest investment areas for VCs, which might explain why funding and deal count are both down this year, per a review of Crunchbase data. But insurance impacts everyone in one way or another, and the sector is also one of the areas that shows great promise for artificial intelligence. Indeed, many of the venture deals that have gone into the sector this year have been around AI and automation. Funded insurtech startups are using AI for functions such as streamlining underwriting, automating claims processing, improving risk assessment, and reducing manual work. The broad trend: Even before the pandemic-fueled funding peaks, insurtech startups received more than double the amount of venture funding in 2019 than they have in more recent years. While investors haven’t given up on insurtech, funding to startups in the space is down in 2025 and deal count is at a multiyear record low. The numbers: So far in 2025, global insurance-related startups have pulled in about $3.9 billion in seed-through growth-stage financing, per Crunchbase data — almost less than one-fourth of the 2021 peak dollars raised — with deal counts also on the decline. The lower deal count signals both potentially decreased investor interest in the space, as well as larger round sizes. Noteworthy recent rounds Several large megadeals took place this year, many of them in this final quarter. Unsurprisingly, one of the largest recipients of venture capital often cited AI as an area of focus. In October, San Francisco-based CyberCube raised $180 million in a venture round led by Spectrum Equity. Founded in 2015, the company noted at the time of its fundraise that deeper adoption of AI technology has been a part of its strategy since its inception. “CyberCube has continued to harness the power of its proprietary AI toolset and internet-scale large language models to drive insights from complex data to solve clients’ biggest problem – to meaningfully quantify cyber risk to maintain profitability and sustainability,” the company said in a news release. And, in recent weeks, Austin-based Curative raised $150 million in a Series B financing that valued the startup at $1.275 billion. Founded in 2020, Curative created and launched an employer-based health insurance plan that focuses on preventative care and a pledge of $0 out-of-pocket costs. The startup uses AI to power its member experience in combination with human support. Investors include DCVC, Refactor, Duquesne Family Office, Jam Fund and Upside Vision Fund. On Dec. 3, Angle Health raised $134 million in a Series B financing to grow its own AI-driven healthcare benefits offering. Portage Ventures led the 6-year-old San Francisco startup’s raise, which also included participation from Y Combinator, Wing Venture Capital and others. And in January, Boston-based Openly brought in $123 million in a growth financing led by Eden Global Partners. Founded in 2017, the company offers home, auto and life insurance services using AI to generate quotes. Early-stage insurtech funding There were smaller insurtech raises as well, for companies working on a variety of insurance-related issues, many of them centered around automating aspects of the claims process. While funding is undoubtedly down from the peak, it’s also clear that insurtech isn’t dead. The industry’s newest winners just look a little different than the straight D2C plays we’ve seen in the past, as they are more focused on infrastructure and workflows. If that’ll make it easier and cheaper to get insurance, that’s not a bad thing. Related Crunchbase query: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
SpaceX IPO At $1.5T Valuation Would Be 10x Larger Than Biggest VC-Backed Listing Of All Time
SpaceX is forging ahead with plans for an initial public offering to raise “significantly” more than $30 billion, sources told Bloomberg. The Elon Musk-led company is reportedly targeting a valuation of $1.5 trillion. If that indeed happens, the transaction would be by far the biggest stock-market listing of all time, Crunchbase data shows. A SpaceX IPO could take place as early as mid- to late-2026, or possibly in 2027, Bloomberg reported. Until October, Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX was the world’s most valuable private, venture-backed company. It was reportedly valued at $400 billion after a secondary share sale this summer. OpenAI took over the top spot when it conducted its own secondary share sale at a valuation of $500 billion. Founded in 2002, SpaceX has raised nearly $12 billion in its lifetime, according to Crunchbase. Investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Craft Ventures, Valor Equity Partners and Founders Fund, among others. Record IPOs A stock-market listing at its reported target valuation would dwarf the initial valuations of any other venture-backed startups on record. The largest to date remains Facebook’s IPO in 2012 that valued the social media company (now named Meta) at $104 billion. More mega IPOs could be on tap Notably, SpaceX’s potential IPO, while the largest, is not the only massive listing that may be in the works. The largest two generative AI startups, OpenAI and Anthropic, are also reportedly mulling public listings that would value them in the hundreds of millions of dollars, or more. OpenAI is reportedly eyeing an initial public valuation of up to $1 trillion if it goes public as soon as next year, while Anthropic is currently said to be pursuing fresh funding at a private valuation of more than $300 billion. So it would presumably seek an even higher market cap in a public offering, although it’s yet unclear how high. Related Crunchbase queries: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
Jeff Bezos’ Project Prometheus Joins The Unicorn Board Alongside 18 Other Startups In November
November brought another strong showing for The Crunchbase Unicorn Board with 19 companies joining the ranks of billion-dollar startups. The largest round went to Jeff Bezos’ Project Prometheus, which has reportedly raised billions of dollars out of the gate with the intent to develop AI for manufacturing in aerospace, automobiles and computers. Among the sectors for new unicorn creation last month, AI led once again. The largest number of companies hailed from the data and model side as well as workflow applications. At least 13 of the 19 new unicorns have AI at the center of what they do. Other sectors with two or more new unicorns were healthcare and defense. Fourteen of November’s new unicorns are U.S.-based. The remaining five companies were each from China, India, Hong Kong, Canada and Denmark. In the U.S., Palo Alto rivaled San Francisco and Austin with three companies from the Silicon Valley city, compared to two each from the other cities. New unicorns Here are November’s 19 newly minted unicorns. AI data and models AI workflow applications Healthcare Defense Media and entertainment Financial services Web3 Transportation Insurance Govtech And here’s one we missed from the end of October. Commercial space station developer Vast raised a $150 million Series A led by IQT, a fund affiliated with U.S. national security. The 4-year-old Long Beach, California-based company was valued at $1.9 billion. Related Crunchbase unicorn lists: Related reading: Methodology The Crunchbase Unicorn Board is a curated list that includes private unicorn companies with post-money valuations of $1 billion or more and is based on Crunchbase data. New companies are added to the Unicorn Board as they reach the $1 billion valuation mark as part of a funding round. The unicorn board does not reflect internal company valuations — such as those set via a 409a process for employee stock options — as these differ from, and are more likely to be lower than, a priced funding round. We also do not adjust valuations based on investor writedowns, which change quarterly, as different investors will not value the same company consistently within the same quarter. Funding to unicorn companies includes all private financings to companies that are tagged as unicorns, as well as those that have since graduated to The Exited Unicorn Board. Exits analyzed here only include the first time a company exits. Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to Crunchbase long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price. Illustration: Dom Guzman
Exclusive: Founded By Husband And Wife Team, Zed Raises $16.5M To Give Young Professionals In Asia Access to Credit
Zed, a Philippines-based startup building credit products for young professionals across the Asia-Pacific region, has raised $16.5 million in a Series A funding round, it tells Crunchbase News exclusively. Palo Alto, California-based Accel led the financing, which brings Zed’s total funding raised to $22.5 million. The startup’s latest round comes amid a robust period for fintech investment overall: Global venture funding to financial technology startups in 2025 has, as of Dec. 8, reached $48.7 billion across 3,498 deals, per Crunchbase data. That’s a 29.5% increase in dollars raised compared to the $37.6 billion raised across 4,588 deals during the same time period in 2024. An ‘aha’ momentSteve Abraham and Danielle Cojuangco Abraham. Courtesy photo. Founded in 2021 by husband and wife serial entrepreneurs Steve Abraham and Danielle Cojuangco Abraham, Zed’s initial market has been the Philippines. The pair stumbled upon the idea for Zed after selling their previous company, Symple, a B2B mobile payments network, to Feather in 2020. When traveling to the Philippines, where Danielle is originally from, the couple describes having an “aha experience.” After landing at the airport, they were going to meet Danielle’s brother at a bar three miles away. “It really should have taken only 15 minutes. But it ended up taking a full hour, because we realized it was payday Friday, where everyone’s rushing to the ATMs after work,” Danielle recalls. “They’re pulling out their entire paychecks and spending them all night because they’ve been waiting to shop with that cash that they’ve gotten that day.” When they got to the bar, the couple noticed that Danielle’s brother paid for refreshments in cash. They were confused why the young man — a lawyer at a prestigious firm — didn’t use a credit card. His response when asked? “I tried. I’ve gone to three banks, and they’ve all rejected me. I can’t get a credit card.” “That was the moment that Steve and I realized that we just had to dig into this, and learn more about this opportunity,” Danielle said. And so Zed was born. Regulation and risk management The co-founders/co-CEOs spent the first three years of Zed’s life acquiring the startup’s financial institution license from the Central Bank of the Philippines. They then launched Zed’s first product — a “modern” credit card that focuses on features for travel, online shopping and peer-to-peer payments — in mid-2024. “To get our license, we had to set up a compliance org and operations org and essentially pass all of the application checks that any bank would have to pass,” Steve told Crunchbase News in an interview. “That took a while — it was a beast of an effort. … In order to do this, we’ve had to reinvent the primitives that banks are built on.” Traditional banks, he said, rely exclusively on credit scores, which are based on factors that depend heavily on age — such as how long a person has had their accounts or how many credit lines they’ve ever opened. “So young people, like recent college graduates, with growing incomes, stable jobs and no negative marks in their files still can’t get credit cards because of low scores that are only a reflection of their age,” he added. “This leaves a huge segment of potentially prime customers unserved.” Zed uses foundational models to profile and underwrite the risk of customers based on transaction data, financial documents, and other structured and unstructured data sources. That way, the pair said, Zed can serve young professionals with signals of low risk across data sources such as stable cash flows, responsible spending and saving patterns, and other factors. “This approach unlocks massive opportunity across a region where less than 50% of the population is under 30 and where current credit card penetration is sub-15%, excluding China and Singapore,” Danielle said. Targeting a younger customer base Zed’s biggest competitors are long-established, incumbent banks that are more focused on older and wealthier customers, the pair said. They’ve intentionally designed Zed’s credit card to have features that are geared toward the young professional, including zero FX fees and zero FX markup; the ability to create single-use or 24-hour cards that automatically close themselves, and the ability to send each other money “as easily as using Venmo but with the flexibility of settling when their card statement is due.” For now, Zed is still in the invite-only launch period. Its waitlist has attracted nearly 200,000 sign-ups “strictly through word of mouth.” The company says its customer base has grown by 10x, and its monthly gross merchandise value (monthly spend) has grown by about 500% since the beginning of 2025. The startup generates revenue from interchange fees and interest on purchases made by customers using its credit card. “The vast majority of our waitlist has yet to be invited,” Steve said. Presently, Zed has 13 employees across San Francisco and Manila. Operations are headquartered in Manila, while product and design employees work out of San Francisco. The startup in March 2021 raised $6 million in a seed round that was led by Valar Ventures and included participation from Mercury CEO and founder Immad Akhund, along with Dalton Caldwell, Kunal Shah and other angels. Looking ahead, Zed wants to expand throughout the APAC region, including markets such as Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and India. “Eventually, our plan is to expand globally and connect young people who share a common lifestyle and financial goals, wherever they may be, from Asia to North America,” Danielle said. Accel Partner Nafis Jamal, who previously worked as head of consumer payments at fintech giant Circle, told Crunchbase News via email that he believes Zed has potential because “very few people” have access to credit despite the fact that the Philippines is one of the youngest, fastest-growing markets in the region. The firm was also drawn to the co-founding team’s experience. “Danielle and Steve bring serious technical talent and a deep understanding of the local customer and regulatory landscape,” he said. “Second, they execute with unusual discipline: smart underwriting paired with a product that feels incredibly intuitive to use.” Related Crunchbase query: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman