Profitable fintech startup Galileo Financial raises its first institutional funding of $77 million after 19 years

Galileo Financial, a tech startup that powers the backend of the world’s most innovative card and fintech companies, just raised its first institutional funding of $77 million to accelerate growth, including expansion into Latin America, the UK and Europe, and for continued product expansion. The seed A round was led by venture capital firm Accel with participation from Qualtrics Co-Founder & CEO Ryan Smith. In conjunction with the funding, Galileo also announced that Accel Partner John Locke, is joining its Board of Directors.

Founded in 2000 by Clay Wilkes and Dave Wilkes, the Salt Lake City, Utah-based Galileo APIs power the next generation of banking products globally. Galileo is behind the technology that powers most fintech companies, financial institutions and investment firms in North America, Latin America, Canada, Asia, and Europe, delivering solutions in the complex world of payments and financial services. It is a flexible platform, handling thousands of financial transactions every moment of every day. Galileo is the category-leading APIs and comprehensive back-office support empowers its clients to stay fully focused on creating the greatest value and best user experiences for their customers.

Many of the most discerning tech companies globally—including Chime, Robinhood, Monzo, Revolut, Transferwise, Varo and many others—trust Galileo’s APIs to open and verify new financial accounts, issue and process payment cards, and launch new products. Whether an account is accessed via debit, credit, prepaid or mobile, with Galileo all fintech products are integrated on one API platform.

Galileo Founder & CEO Clay Wilkes said, “Over the years, we’ve built the API standard for card issuing programs and fintech innovation, focusing on a feature- rich product set, profitability and delighting our clients. This funding will help us double-down on these themes, while also becoming more aggressive in expanding geographically and providing the building blocks for the world’s most innovative payments programs. We’re thrilled to be working with Accel and Ryan Smith.”

As of September 2019, Galileo manages over $26B in annual payments volume, a 130 percent increase over September 2018. Galileo’s APIs are used widely throughout the neobank, payments, gig economy, investing and SaaS market segments.

Commenting on the funding, Accel Partner John Locke said, “We’re in a golden era of fintech innovation and Galileo has quietly built the API infrastructure layer powering the industry’s most innovative products. Clay and his team have built a very impressive business with many parallels to companies like Qualtrics and Atlassian: bootstrapping first to build a quiet, profitable powerhouse and now, ready to go big globally. We’re excited to help Clay and team take Galileo to the next level.”