MX Raises $100M For Financial Data Cleansing And Analytics

Mobile platforms, flashy cards, peer-to-peer payments and more have propelled startups like Chime and Petal into the spotlight of fintech as they aim to bring the banking industry into the 21st century.

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Today Lehi, Utah-based MX, an enterprise banking-focused data analytics platform, has scored $100 million from Battery Ventures. Other participants in the round include Point72 Ventures, Sorenson Capital, Pelion Venture Partners, and others.

Founded in 2010, MX initially focused on providing banks with personal financial management software.

“At the beginning, a lot of banks and credit unions weren’t…thinking about data yet,” said MX CEO Ryan Caldwell in an interview. “They wanted to make their online banking and mobile experiences better, and to provide basic tools to their users to help them understand and manage their money.”

So the company went to market with that personal finance management product, with a larger data-centric thesis in mind. Since then, though, MX has added a host of data-based services to its platform. The company aims to add context to what Caldwell called “strings” of unreadable, unrefined transaction data to help banks understand who their customers are and their transaction behaviors.

“People get incredible levels of service from Amazon, incredible recommendations…from Netflix. Those types of companies are so data driven…so that they can help understand what you might do and be ready to serve you according to what you need, not just the products that they want to push towards you,” Caldwell explained.

MX has raised a known total of $175 million, and the company is planning on using the recent tranche of capital to double down on sales and marketing, adding to its customer base that includes 2,000 enterprises.

MX last raised more than four years ago in April 2015, and Caldwell said that laying a solid foundation for growth was top of mind for the Utah-based company over the past few years.

“We have four conference tables with incredibly thick, concrete bases,” Caldwell expressed. “Part of the reason [for that is to] remind everybody that we’re building on something really solid–we’re not intending to build a quick wooden hut on a beach. This is 300-foot-deep pylons drilled straight through rock to support a 1,000 story building. I mean, our intent is to build something massive and large.”

Caldwell told Crunchbase News the company has been cash flow positive and profitable for about two years, though he declined to provide specific metrics about revenue or valuation.

The company’s focus on building a solid foundation based on operational efficiency isn’t surprising when you take into account the CEO’s influences. Utah has a history of being home to huge SaaS companies that eschewed venture funding altogether. And while the narrative around venture funding and paths to growth may be shifting in Utah as more Silicon Valley investors flock to the state, the bootstrapping mentality still serves at the core of many Utah-based companies.

iStockPhoto / gremlin