Fintech Unicorns Affirm, Bill.com Collect Big Rounds

Bay Area fintech startups are cashing in this week.

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Axios’ Dan Primack reported this morning that consumer credit startup Affirm has raised $300 million at a $2.9 billion post-money valuation. The Series F round takes the San Francisco-based company’s total funding over time to more than $1 billion. Its last raise was a $200 million Series E in December 2017.

Thrive Capital, Fidelity, Wellington Management, Baillie Gifford and Sound Ventures participated in the latest financing, according to Axios.

PayPal co-founder Max Levchin helped launch Affirm in 2012 to provide consumers a replacement for credit cards. The mobile app offers installment loans to consumers at the point of sale.

Also, yesterday, Palo Alto-based Bill.com announced an $88M funding round led by Franklin Templeton with participation from Mastercard, Fidelity Investments Canada ULC and others. The round takes Bill.com’s total venture raised over time to just over $347 million, according to its Crunchbase profile.

That round also catapulted Bill.com to unicorn status with a valuation of more than $1 billion, according to reports. Founded in 2006, Bill.com is a cloud-based business payments and software platform focused on the SMB market.

Founder and CEO Rene Lacerte diverted questions from the Silicon Valley Business Journal about whether the company is profitable yet or when it might plan to go public, telling reporter Cromwell Schubarth that the company’s current focus “is about building and solving the biggest pain points for customers and doing the right thing for businesses.” In a press release, Lacerte said the company automates payments and back office business processes to help its customers achieve “significant efficiencies and cost savings.”

Currently, more than three million members pay or are getting paid with Bill.com, according to the company, which manages more than $60 billion in annual payments.

In October 2018, Brex, a (also Bay Area-based) provider of credit cards for startups, raised $125 million in a Series C round that also gave it unicorn status with a $1.1 billion valuation. (Read more about that here.)

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias