Spade, which is improving transaction data to improve finance, has secured $5m in its seed funding round.
The investment was led by a16z, with commitments also coming from YCombinator, Gradient Ventures and Dash Fund. Angel investors from Square, Alloy, Coinbase, MANTL and Venmo also joined the round.
Following the close of the seed round, the company hopes to expand its international coverage, broaden the types of transactions it supports and improve its merchant data with proprietary insights.
Spade claims that it cleans and enriches transaction data in real time through first-party data sets. Transactions are matched one-to-one with actual merchant identities, categories and geolocations. They are also enriched with details such as logos, business hours and spending histories to give a fuller picture of a purchase.
With this information, card issuers, anti-fraud companies, neobanks and others can enhance real-time authorisation flows, implement spend controls, fine-tune fraud prevention models and more.
a16z general partner Angela Strange said, “High quality transaction data has long been a missing piece of fintech infrastructure. Spade’s data network approach unlocks many critical use cases like improving authorization rates and reducing fraud.
“By partnering with Spade, fintech companies and larger financial institutions are able to not only reduce transaction risk, but also to offer customers products with better spend visibility and control.”
a16z is no stranger to the FinTech sector. The firm recently led the $6m funding round of Stelo Labs, a startup seeking to protect wallets from scams and phishing and securely navigate Web3.
Another company to recently receive backing from a16z is Brightside. The company, which offers a financial care platform for employers, closed its Series B funding round on $33m, as it looks to enhance its AI-powered solution.
Keep up with all the latest FinTech news here.
Copyright © 2023 FinTech Global
