When I talk to hospitality entrepreneur Will Makris, he’s wearing sunglasses, cantering through the New York City streets, with the warm but frenetic air of someone who’s usually on the move.
Makris, who’s known for members-only club Zero Bond and Italian hot spot Lucali, wants me to understand that he loves his charge card from fintech Atlas so much that he’s an investor in the company—and that his business is even linked to Atlas.
“I’ve heard about companies like this 100 times,” said Makris. “But this has been so personalized as an experience. If you’re into eating at the coolest new restaurants, and want to have a personalized relationship with the business you’re using, it’s been such a different experience…Atlas has been sending customers to my places, too. So, this is a win for me too—it’s not just that I’m a customer, Atlas is actually sending me business now.”
In a tough time for fintech, Atlas is looking to beat the odds by building a business focused on serving high-net-worth individuals. So far, it’s barreling forward with traction: Fortune can exclusively report that Atlas has launched its platform combining card and concierge services, and the company has a waitlist that’s more than 30,000 strong.
Atlas’ value proposition to its clientele is simple: If you’re Makris or former Google CEO (and Atlas customer) Eric Schmidt, cashback and points are all well and good. But what you really want are convenient pathways to luxury experiences, from sporting events and concerts to Erewhon memberships.
“We’re almost building a marketplace for access,” said Altas founder Patrick Mrozowski. “We’re going to curate the best restaurants, the best hotels and events, and make it really seamless for you to get into those things—and it’ll be so seamless that you’re going to pay us for that.”
Well, I probably won’t be. But there are about 22 million millionaires in the U.S. (quite a few who read this newsletter, I expect) and that’s who Atlas is chasing. To me, what was most interesting about Atlas was the economics of it: This isn’t a fintech company that’s looking for tens of millions of customers. Most fintechs I cover, at some point in their business plan, often have a quantity challenge when it comes to customers—though customer acquisition is usually expensive, getting into mass market territory is the economic end game.
Not so for Atlas. Mrozowski tells me Atlas is generating millions in revenue and that its customer base is especially strong in New York City. The company hasn’t yet invested in marketing, so customer acquisition to date has been organic. It’s a dynamic that ties into the social nature of the product itself.
“It’s like having a personal concierge in my pocket,” said serial entrepreneur and Atlas customer Baruj Avram via email. “I often introduce Atlas to friends during dinners booked through Atlas. They see me using my card, and are curious.”
Atlas’ backers include Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures, Day One Ventures, Breyer Capital, and YC Continuity. Mrozowski—a serial entrepreneur who sold his first company Crumbs in 2018—says he isn’t in a pinch to find new venture backers imminently. (The company declined to disclose the amount raised to date.)
“We don’t really need to raise that much funding,” he told Term Sheet. “We can become profitable pretty quickly, since our growth is organic, and the amount of revenue that we’re getting from each customer is very substantial.” (To that end, Atlas says its average revenue per user has doubled since the product came out of beta in 2023, though it declined to share any specific numbers.)
It’s almost like this company found some kind of fintech business model cheat code, because Atlas also gets to skirt another frequent fintech problem: When you provide a credit card, people have got to pay it in order for your business to work.
“Nobody’s ever not paid their balance,” said Mrozowski. “When people don’t pay on time, it’s not because they don’t have the intention of paying—they’re just forgetful.”
And, yeah, if the idea of a fintech that exists to take on American Express Centurion makes some of you bristle, I totally get it. But Atlas is nevertheless pursuing one of the greatest promises of fintech—to reimagine financial services into a better customer experience. In this case, the customers just happen to be extremely wealthy—and occasionally “forgetful.”
Hello from Park City…I couldn’t be more jazzed to be at my first Fortune Brainstorm Tech! As you read this, I’m probably going horseback riding, trying to hang out with newly minted author Jeremy Kahn, or hyping up for my mainstage interview with Thrive Capital’s Philip Clark and Wiz’s Assaf Rappaport. It’ll be a big one: Wiz is reportedly in talks to be acquired by Alphabet for $23 billion. Check it out on our livestream here.
See you tomorrow,
Allie Garfinkle
Twitter: @agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com
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Joe Abrams curated the deals section of today’s newsletter.
VENTURE DEALS
- Partior, a Singapore-based fintech company, raised more than $60 million in Series B funding. Peak XV Partners led the round and was joined by Valor Capital Group, Jump Trading Group, and existing investors J.P. Morgan, Standard Chartered, and Temasek.
- tapi, a Buenos Aires, Argentina-based payments platform, raised $22 million in Series A funding. Kaszek led the round and was joined by Andreessen Horowitz.
- Alvys, a Solana Beach, Calif.-based logistics operating platform, raised $20.5 million in Series A funding. Titanium Ventures led the round and was joined by Picus Capital and existing investors RTP and Bonfire.
- Haruko, a London, U.K.-based digital asset investment management platform, raised $6 million in Series A funding. White Star Capital’s Digital Asset Fund and MMC Ventures led the round.
PRIVATE EQUITY
- H.I.G. Capital acquired the professional services and payroll & HCM Outsourcing business of Alight (NYSE: ALIT), a Lincolnshire, Ill.-based provider of health, wealth, and wellbeing services for employees, for up to $1.2 billion.
OTHER
- HID Global Corporation acquired Vizzia Technologies, an Atlanta, Ga.-based location systems platform designed for health care and hospital applications. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- SoftBank acquired Graphcore, a Bristol, U.K.-based developer of semiconductors and microprocessors. Financial terms were not disclosed.
