Spade raises $5m in seed funding round led by a16z

How Spade is bringing actionable, enriched transaction data to the innovators of tomorrow

At Spade, we’re transforming the future of finance by solving a problem that has plagued the industry for far too long: bad transaction data.

The U.S. alone processes upwards of 124 billion credit and debit card transactions each year (plus over 26 billion transfers). Most are reported in cryptic strings of letters, numbers, and symbols that don’t offer much in the way of information or insight.

That means fintechs and other forward-thinking companies end up spending countless hours and resources trying to decipher these codes through guesswork—or paying for ineffective algorithms that still leave significant gaps in the data.

Spade’s mission is to change that.

Transaction data that's actionable

With Spade, transaction data is cleaned and enriched in real time using a proprietary first-party data set. Transactions are matched one-to-one with actual merchant identities, categories, and geolocations, and they’re enhanced with details like logos, business hours, and spending histories that paint the full picture behind a purchase.

Financial innovators from card issuers to anti-fraud platforms to neobanks can use this clear, comprehensive data for high-value use cases like enhancing real-time authorization flows, implementing granular spend controls, fine-tuning fraud prevention models, and more.

For us, success means changing not only how fintechs around the world leverage transaction data to build the next generation of finance, but how consumers and businesses use it to take control of their financial lives.

$5m in seed funding led by a16z

Today, we’re closer than ever to creating a financial future based on accuracy and transparency, having raised $5M in seed funding. Our seed round was led by renowned venture capital firm a16z with participation from YCombinator, Gradient Ventures, and Dash Fund. Angel investors from Square, Alloy, Coinbase, MANTL, and Venmo also participated, bringing a depth of fintech knowledge and expertise to the team.

We’ve poured these resources into developing an industry-leading enrichment engine, backed by superior data, broader coverage, faster insights, and location details down to the geographic coordinates. This has not only helped us stand out from the pack—with several head-to-head bake-off wins against our closest competitors—it’s also resonated with industry leaders and helped us add names like Unit, Solid, Yotta, Daylight, Ness, and Coast to our growing list of customers.

As we enter our next phase of growth, we’re focused on the future. Specifically, we’ll be expanding our international coverage, broadening the types of transactions we enrich, and further improving our merchant data with proprietary insights.

Providing clearer, more actionable transaction data to the consumers and organizations that need it unlocks countless possibilities for the future of fintech—and that’s what you can expect from Spade.