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Mercury Technologies, Inc.
Mercury is a fintech company that provides business banking and financial services to startups and other companies.
Mercury is a digital banking platform built for startups and growing businesses. It offers business checking and savings accounts, corporate credit cards, and tools for managing finances, all through a modern online interface. The company is not a bank itself; it partners with FDIC-insured institutions to hold deposits, while Mercury handles the software, user experience, and customer service layer that makes banking feel fast and simple.
Startups choose Mercury because traditional banks often treat small, young companies as an afterthought, with clunky interfaces and high fees. Mercury offers no monthly service fees, free domestic and international wire transfers, and integration with popular accounting and payment tools. Its customers are primarily venture-backed startups, e-commerce businesses, and other digital-first companies. The company makes money through interchange fees on card transactions, interest earned on customer deposits held at partner banks, and fees for premium services. Mercury has expanded beyond basic banking into a broader financial operating system for startups, adding treasury management, bill pay, and expense tracking. It competes with traditional banks like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America on one side, and with other fintech platforms like Brex and Ramp on the other. The company has raised significant venture funding and is one of the better-known private fintechs in the United States, though it has faced scrutiny over its compliance controls and the fact that deposits are not held directly by Mercury itself.
For founders, the appeal is speed and simplicity: open an account in minutes, move money internationally without painful fees, and connect everything to the tools they already use. Whether that advantage holds as bigger banks improve their digital offerings and regulators tighten rules around fintech-bank partnerships is the central question for Mercury's future.
Saved answer · last researched 10 Nov 2026
BIG PICTURE
95% of U.S. startups Mercury surveyed already use AI agents in daily work
- 95% Startups using AI agents daily
- 5% Not yet using AI agents
Mercury asked American startups in May 2026 and found almost all of them, 95%, already had AI agents doing daily work, with another 1% testing them. Those agents cost money, and Mercury's own customer data shows the average monthly AI bill at companies of up to 50 people rose more than 50% in a year. Mercury sells banking and card tools to these same startups, so their spending habits are its business. Source: El Ecosistema Startup (Mercury report), data from 2026
Timeline
Mercury Technologies Is Founded
In 2017, Immad Akhund, Maximilian Tagher and Jason Zhang started Mercury Technologies. Their idea was simple: startups need a bank account built for them, not a generic business account from a big bank. So they set out to build banking and money tools made specifically for early-stage and growing companies.
A Short-Seller Report Hits the Stock
Then, in July 2022, a short-seller report accused the company of overstating its organic growth, recognizing revenue too early and running a growth effort that had failed. The stock fell almost 8% in a single day, and over the following period shares lost nearly half their value.
CEO Mark Aslett Resigns
The crisis deepened when CEO Mark Aslett abruptly resigned in June 2023. He left after the company's review of a possible sale failed to produce a deal. The stock dropped another 9.6%, and confidence in the company sank further.
A $3.5 Billion Valuation
By 2025 the story had turned. A funding round led by Sequoia Capital valued Mercury at $3.5 billion. The company reached $650 million in annualized revenue that year while staying profitable, which showed it could grow without losing money.
Mercury Is Incorporated in Delaware
In January 2026, Mercury Technologies, Inc. was formally incorporated in Delaware, with stock classes that included Class A shares. The San Francisco entity listed Immad Akhund as Chief Executive, a sign the company was putting a formal corporate structure in place.
Conditional Approval for Mercury Bank
That April, Mercury got conditional approval from the OCC to start its own national bank, Mercury Bank, N.A. This let the company rely less on partner banks, as it worked toward full FDIC and Federal Reserve approvals.
A $5.2 Billion Series D
A $200 million Series D round led by TCV lifted Mercury's valuation to $5.2 billion, about 50% higher than its 2025 round. By then it served over 300,000 customers, including one in three U.S. startups, and most new users came from outside tech.
Mercury Moves Into AI
Mercury launched Mercury Insights, its first AI tool built into the product, and bought payroll startup Central to add AI-powered payroll. It also planned Mercury Command, which would let customers handle financial tasks with AI, as the company pushed deeper into AI-driven services.