US-based banking as a service startup Sila raises US$ 13M

 US-based Sila, a banking as a service platform that makes money programmable for software teams, announced on Monday that it raised US$ 13 million in Series A funding for its banking and payments platform.

Investors: The funding round was led by Revolution Ventures with participation from existing investors Madrona Venture Group, Oregon Venture Fund and Mucker Capital and Wise co-founder Taavet Hinrikus. The total funds raised by Sila stands at US$ 20.7 million.

Purpose of the funding: The funds raised will be utilized by the startup to expand its team, target additional partners and expand product features, including its Ethereum MainNet stablecoin issuance and interoperability between FedWire and the Nacha Automated Clearing House network.

About Sila

Founded in 2018 by Shamir Karkal, Angela Angelovska, Isaac Hines and Alex Lipton, Sila powers modern financial apps by giving them the ability to design a product where money movement can be tied to events within the platform, with just a few lines of code. It aims to simplify digital payments and storage in a regulatory compliant way by building on blockchain technology. It is a digital wallet for customers that’s easy to set up.

Sila can make and receive ACH transfers, link bank accounts, and verify customer identity at a fraction of the cost of traditional bank partnerships. Sila’s banking APIs enable developers to make their own digital wallets, replacing the requirement to integrate with legacy financial institutions.

The startup claims that its revenue grew 10 times and customers’ end users grew over 500% in the last seven months. Sila has also partnered with fintech platforms like Plaid, Alloy, Lithic and Arcus to move money.

What the CEO has to say: “There is a massive wave of fintechs emerging in the U.S., and we have barely scratched the surface. Places like India, Africa and Latin America could accelerate at the same time because they are mainly starting from zero. We are here to ‘arm the rebels’ and help those innovators build applications to give all end-users a much better financial experience.” — Shamir Karkal, CEO of Sila.

Karkal has years of experience in the fintech space. He had co-founded Simple, an app unifying various accounts into one accessible bank card in 2009 which was acquired by BBVA in 2014 for US$ 117 million.

What the investors have to say: “Sila is building an easy way for people to program money and taking a regulatory eye to things. When Shamir was building Simple, he could see how challenging it was for incumbents to provide the tools developers need to embed financial services, and this is why we have confidence in his ability to win.” — Clara Sieg, partner at Revolution Ventures.

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