Plaid Inc.
Company History
Plaid History: Founding, Growth & Key Milestones
Founded 2013 in San Francisco, California, United States
When was Plaid founded?
Plaid was founded in 2013 in San Francisco, California, United States by Zachary Perret and William Hockey, making it 13 years old.
- Founded
- 2013
- Founding place
- San Francisco, California, United States
- Founders
- Zachary Perret and William Hockey
- Headquarters today
- San Francisco, California, United States
- Milestones documented
- 12 (2013–2026)
- Current CEO
- Zachary Perret
- Acquisitions
- 3
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 2013 | Plaid Founded in San Francisco |
| 2014 | $2.8M Seed Round Led by Spark Capital |
| 2016 | $44M Series B Led by Goldman Sachs Investment Partners |
| 2018 | $250M Series C at $2.65B Valuation Led by Kleiner Perkins |
| 2019 | Quovo Acquired |
| 2020 | Visa Announces $5.3B Acquisition of Plaid |
| 2021 | Visa Merger Terminated Following DOJ Antitrust Suit |
| 2021 | Series D at $13.4 Billion Valuation |
| 2022 | Acquires Cognito to Expand into Identity Verification |
| 2024 | CFPB Issues Landmark Section 1033 Open Banking Rule |
| 2025 | Share Sale at $6.1 Billion Valuation |
| 2026 | Surpasses $300M+ ARR Connecting 100M+ Consumers Ahead of IPO |
- Where was Plaid founded?
- Plaid was founded in San Francisco, California, United States in 2013.
- Who founded Plaid?
- Plaid was founded by Zachary Perret and William Hockey.
- When did Plaid start?
- Plaid was founded in 2013.
- How old is Plaid?
- Plaid is 13 years old as of 2026.
Founding Story
Zach Perret and William Hockey met as consultants at Bain & Company. In 2012-2013 they tried to build a personal-finance app and found that getting transaction data out of banks was the hard part. They dropped the app and built that data layer as a product. Plaid launched in 2013 and won early customers such as Venmo.
Founders
Zachary Perret
Zach Perret is the co-founder and CEO of Plaid. He has led the company since 2013, through its shift from screen scraping to direct bank APIs, the abandoned $5.3 billion Visa acquisition in 2020-2021, and its growth to more than $500 million in ARR by 2025. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).
William Hockey
William Hockey co-founded Plaid in 2013 and served as its president, focusing on engineering and product. He left Plaid in 2021 and co-founded Column, a nationally chartered bank built for developers. William Hockey was born in 1989.
Key Milestones
Plaid Founded in San Francisco
Zach Perret and William Hockey founded Plaid to build modern developer APIs for banking data.
Source: en.wikipedia.org$2.8M Seed Round Led by Spark Capital
Raised $2.8 million in seed capital, launching Plaid Link and signing early fintech customers Venmo and Robinhood.
Source: en.wikipedia.org$44M Series B Led by Goldman Sachs Investment Partners
Secured $44 million to expand bank connectivity across thousands of regional US credit unions and banks.
Source: en.wikipedia.org$250M Series C at $2.65B Valuation Led by Kleiner Perkins
Achieved unicorn status at $2.65 billion, acquiring competitor Quovo to expand into wealth management data.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgQuovo Acquired
Plaid bought the investment-data company Quovo in January 2019.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgVisa Announces $5.3B Acquisition of Plaid
Visa announced a definitive agreement to acquire Plaid for $5.3 billion to expand into open banking.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgVisa Merger Terminated Following DOJ Antitrust Suit
Mutually terminated the Visa acquisition following a DOJ antitrust suit; raised $425M Series D at $13.4B valuation.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgSeries D at $13.4 Billion Valuation
Plaid raised $425 million in April 2021 at a $13.4 billion valuation.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgAcquires Cognito to Expand into Identity Verification
Acquired identity verification platform Cognito, launching Plaid IDV and compliance monitoring.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgCFPB Issues Landmark Section 1033 Open Banking Rule
The CFPB finalized Section 1033 regulations, legally prohibiting banks from blocking consumer open banking data.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgShare Sale at $6.1 Billion Valuation
Plaid sold about $575 million of stock in April 2025 at a $6.1 billion valuation.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgSurpasses $300M+ ARR Connecting 100M+ Consumers Ahead of IPO
Achieved annualized revenue exceeding $300 million, powering over 8,000 fintech applications.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgMajor Acquisitions
Quovo
2019Investment-account data aggregation (price reported by press, not confirmed by Plaid).
Cognito
2022Identity verification and AML compliance platform.
This Week in Fintech
2026Fintech newsletter operation for media expansion.
Keep researching Plaid
Plaid Company History FAQ
What are the major historical milestones of Plaid since 2013?
Key historical milestones include: 2013 founding by Zach Perret and William Hockey; 2013 TechCrunch Disrupt win; 2014 launch of Plaid Link; 2019 acquisition of Quovo ($200M); January 2020 announced $5.3B acquisition by Visa; January 2021 mutual termination of Visa deal; April 2021 $425M Series D at $13.4B valuation; 2022 acquisition of Cognito ($250M); 2023 launch of Plaid Beacon; and 2024 launch of Plaid Layer.
How did Plaid enable the rapid growth of Robinhood and Venmo in the 2010s?
Before Plaid, verifying a user's bank account required slow micro-deposits taking 2 to 3 business days. Plaid Auth enabled instantaneous bank verification in under 30 seconds, eliminating drop-off and fueling the rapid viral user onboarding for Venmo and Robinhood.
What was the Department of Justice (DOJ) antitrust lawsuit against Visa's acquisition of Plaid?
In November 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice sued to block Visa's $5.3 billion acquisition of Plaid, alleging that Visa was attempting to eliminate an emerging competitive threat to its online debit card monopoly by buying Plaid's nascent account-to-account payment network.
How did Plaid transform its relationship with major US banks between 2018 and 2023?
Historically, banks like JPMorgan Chase and Capital One blocked screen-scraping out of security concerns. Plaid worked closely with financial institutions to build bilateral data agreements (Core Exchange) and OAuth APIs, transitioning into a trusted strategic partner for tier-one banks.
How did Plaid expand during the 2020-2021 pandemic digital finance boom?
During the COVID-19 pandemic, as physical bank branches closed, digital banking adoption surged by years in months. Plaid saw customer demand explode across mobile banking, crypto exchanges (Coinbase), and digital lending, doubling its customer base and transaction volume.
What was the launch of Plaid Transfer and Instant Payouts in 2022?
In 2022, Plaid expanded from data aggregation into payment movement by launching Plaid Transfer, enabling account-to-account bank payments, automated payroll disbursements, and instant multi-rail money transfers.
How did Plaid introduce Plaid Layer in 2024?
In 2024, Plaid rolled out Plaid Layer, a network-level authentication service that remembers 500M+ linked accounts across apps. When a user joins a new Plaid-powered app, Layer auto-fills their bank credentials with a one-time SMS passcode, cutting onboarding time to under 15 seconds.
What is Plaid's enduring historical contribution to global fintech?
Plaid democratized global financial data access, building the universal open banking infrastructure that made modern fintech possible, empowering hundreds of millions of consumers to control their financial lives through digital apps.
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