Founded in 1928 and acquired by a group of fintech executives in 2022, Lead is an FDIC-insured bank that offers accounts, payments, card issuing and lending through a suite of APIs, allowing Fintechs to build financial products without holding a bank charter. In December, Lead acquired Loop, a payments processor that helps businesses and e-commerce platforms move money using stablecoin rails for faster settlement. <p>Funding: $180 million from Ribbit, Coatue and Khosla Ventures, among others. </p><p>Latest valuation: $1.47 billion. </p><p>Date of last valuation: July 2025. </p><p>Bona fides: In 2025, Lead’s net revenue rose to $108 million, up from $73 million in 2024. Adjusted earnings jumped from $22 million to $31 million. </p><p>Cofounders: CEO Jacqueline Reses, 56; CTO Ronak Vyas, 55; chief product and data science officer Homam Maalouf, 42; and chief legal and risk officer Erica Khalili, 43—a team of execs who built a bank at fintech Block (formerly Square).</p>
Public company, workplace, funding, and market signals
Updated Aug 16, 2026
Lead Bank is a state-chartered, FDIC-insured community bank and banking-as-a-service (BaaS) platform. It provides API-driven banking infrastructure for fintech, consumer, business, and digital-asset companies while continuing to operate traditional business and personal banking services.
Primary product
Lead Partner Platform: programmable, API-driven infrastructure for embedded finance, including accounts, payments and money movement, card issuing, lending, and digital-asset/stablecoin-related services.
Founded
1928
Headquarters
Sunnyvale, California, United States (corporate/technology headquarters); FDIC-insured bank headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri
Team size
200-300
Work style
Flexible
Industry
Financial Services
Sub-industry
Banking-as-a-Service, embedded finance, sponsor banking, fintech infrastructure
Offices
Business model
Stage
Series B
Total raised
$180M
Latest round
Series B · Sep 2025
Latest amount
$70M
Sep 2025 · ICONIQ Capital and Greycroft
Apr 2024
Acquisition / buyout by Luna Parent
Aug 2022 · Luna Parent, Inc.; investor group led by Jackie Reses
Oct 2020
Leadership
Co-Founder, CEO & Chair
Ronak Vyas
Co-Founder, Chief Technology Officer
Homam Maalouf
Co-Founder, Chief Product & Data Science Officer
Erica Khalili
Co-Founder, Chief Legal & Risk Officer
Ken Auspaker
Chief Financial Officer
Brooke Clouse
Chief Operating Officer
Albert Song
Chief Design Officer
Angela Blackburn
Chief People & Experiences Officer
Lead describes a founder-oriented, high-performance culture centered on owner mentality, change and innovation, technical excellence, regulatory responsibility, and cross-functional collaboration. CEO Jackie Reses has characterized the organization as a high-performing team rather than a family, with strong accountability and performance expectations.
Work style
Flexible
Compensation
A public Software Engineer III posting listed $190,000-$210,000 base compensation for the San Francisco Bay Area and New York geographic zone. Equity, bonuses, and benefits details were not consistently disclosed in the public postings reviewed.
Benefits
Pricing
Custom, contract-based enterprise pricing; public standard pricing was not found. Likely revenue components include sponsorship and program fees, transaction and payment fees, card interchange, and net interest income.
Differentiators
Technology
Customers
Competitors
Estimated revenue
$100 million-$200 million annually; third-party estimates include approximately $124 million for 2025 and approximately $180 million for 2024, but Lead does not publicly disclose audited revenue figures.
Estimated monthly visits
65K
Traffic estimate as of Jun 2026
Luna Parent, Inc., led by Jackie Reses and a group of fintech-focused investors, acquired Lead Bank for approximately $56 million. The transaction changed ownership and was followed by a substantial repositioning toward technology-enabled BaaS.
SourceLead operates in a highly regulated BaaS and sponsor-bank market. Public research identifies concentration risk in a relatively small number of large fintech relationships, regulatory scrutiny of fintech partnerships, and sensitivity to interest rates and partner program changes.
SourceThe Block · Sep 2025
The Block reported on Lead's Series B and its expansion as a Missouri-based lender focused on fintech and crypto companies.
Business Wire · Sep 2025
Lead announced a $70 million Series B backed by ICONIQ and Greycroft alongside Ribbit Capital, Coatue, Khosla Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and Zeev Ventures. The financing valued Lead at $1.47 billion.
PYMNTS · Sep 2025
Lead became an additional card-issuing and banking partner for Branch's workforce-payments platform, whose customers include Uber and Instacart.
CNBC · Jun 2025
CNBC described Lead as one of the few FDIC-insured banks offering both consumer banking and a full-stack BaaS platform, with customers including Affirm, Ramp, and Flex.
13 jobs at Lead Bank