Parafin, a financial infrastructure company has raised $100 million in its Series C funding round at a $750 million valuation. The round was led by Notable Capital, with significant participation from Redpoint Ventures. Existing investors Ribbit Capital, Thrive Capital, and GIC also participated in the round.
This funding reflects growing confidence in Parafin’s approach to embedded financial services, an area that continues to transform how small businesses access capital and manage their operations.
CEO and co-founder Sahill Poddar said, “Since we launched Parafin, our mission has been to empower small businesses with financial services. Small businesses are the backbone of the American economy yet banks do not have their backs. Incumbent methods systematically bias against women- and minority-owned businesses. This has historically hindered small business growth. At Parafin, we’ve worked tirelessly to construct our entire company — from our products and teams to our processes — to solve this problem. For example, our machine learning-based risk models train on millions of small business performance data to determine eligibility, offers, and pricing as opposed to relying on credit scores or requiring personal guarantees. Deploying state-of-the-art models enables us to provide responsible and sustainable access to hundreds of thousands of small businesses.”
He added, “This funding is not just a milestone for Parafin but an investment in the future of small businesses. With our machine learning-based risk models and enterprise-grade infrastructure, we’re redefining how financial services are delivered in a digital-first world. This new capital will allow us to scale existing products, ship new products, expand into new geographies, and deepen our partnerships with platforms that support the global small business economy.”
Hans Tung, Managing Partner at Notable Capital and a new board member of Parafin, commented, “What immediately drew us to Parafin was their differentiated approach to solving small business financing at scale through strategic partnerships with the world’s largest platforms. The team has executed flawlessly in building enterprise-grade infrastructure for marketplaces like DoorDash, Walmart, and Amazon, as well as their small and medium business merchants. This is beyond lending — it’s about empowering these businesses through data analytics to grow with the digital economy.”
“Parafin’s focus is clear: To grow small businesses via financial services on digital platforms they use everyday. By embedding financial services directly into the platforms where businesses already operate, the company helps drive growth, loyalty, and retention for platforms while empowering small businesses to thrive. Today, a small business such as a restaurant on DoorDash can get access to financing to grow their operations. As Parafin expands its reach, we’re excited to bring to life solutions that help small businesses not just access capital but also save, store, and spend money via the platforms they transact on,” said Vineet Goel, CPTO and co-founder.
Founded in 2020 by Sahill Poddar and Vineet Goel, Parafin is a financial infrastructure company that provides platforms with embedded financial products for their small businesses by abstracting the complexity of capital markets, underwriting, servicing, compliance, and customer support.
By powering the financial services of marketplaces and payment processors, small businesses can run and grow themselves despite uncertain economic conditions.
In less than three years, Parafin has launched on Amazon, Walmart, DoorDash, TikTok, Worldpay, and more platforms to serve hundreds of thousands of businesses and extended over $8 billion in offers.
Parafin is backed by GIC, Notable Capital, Redpoint Ventures, Ribbit Capital, and Thrive Capital.
Parafin has seen a remarkable trajectory, funding nearly $1 billion annually for tens of thousands of small businesses in the U.S. and Canada. Since its $60 Series B funding round led by GIC in September 2022, the company has grown volumes by 400% and expects to reach profitability within six months.