Credit Card Startup Petal Raises $300M Led By Jefferies

The New York-based FinTech company Petal has announced a $300 million debt round from global investment bank Jefferies, adding to existing venture capital investments from Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures, Rosecliff Ventures and others, the company announced in a press release on Wednesday (Sept. 18).

Last year, Petal borrowed $30 million in debt capital from Jefferies.

The startup credit card company offers its rewards card to people with no credit history. Similar to PayPal and Square, Petal uses data instead of a FICO score to analyze the creditworthiness of applicants.

“Our expanded facility with Jefferies provides an excellent foundation for serving our current and future customers for many quarters to come,” said Andrew Endicott, Petal’s chief financial officer and co-founder. “It’s a massive vote of confidence in Petal’s mission to create a fundamentally better credit product experience that better serves the needs of modern customers.”

Since launching in the fall of 2018, the Petal card has signed up 50,000 customers, with more than 65 percent in the millennial and Gen Z demographic. The no-fee card offers cashback and is intended to help people build credit – even if they’ve never used credit before.

“We are pleased to once again support Petal in its mission to help people succeed financially by offering its customers access to the credit they deserve,” said Michael Wade, head of U.S. ABS capital markets for Jefferies.

In January, Petal raised $30 million in a Series B round led by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures. Other investors include Greyhound Capital, Third Prime Capital, Rosecliff Ventures, Story Ventures, RiverPark Ventures and Afore Capital.

Petal has raised more than $80 million in equity and debt financing, including $46.6 million in equity funding raised across Petal’s seed, Series A and Series B rounds of funding, and $34 million in debt financing.

The startup aims to create an environment where credit is accessible to everyone. To underwrite customers, Petal looks at a person’s cash flow to determine creditworthiness.