“It’s been a real roller coaster,” he said. “Fintech was super hot in 2020, 2021, and by the end of 2022, 2023, it was kind of dead…I feel like this year has seen a big resurgence, and so many companies and ideas from the 2020 era have reached significant maturity.” Akhund points out that some of 2025’s most successful IPOs, from Circle to Chime, were fintechs, adding: “I think excitement is back.”

That’s certainly evident not only in the public markets performance of companies like Chime, but in the private markets, where a number of fintech unicorns like Mercury are once again attracting capital. (In March, Mercury raised its Sequoia-led $300 million Series C at a $3.5 billion valuation.) The company now tells Fortune it’s reached a key financial milestone: At the end of Q3, Mercury hit $650 million in annualized revenue, a nice jump from $500 million by the end of 2024. 

In a world where startups sometimes hide behind squishy financial metrics, Akhund is refreshingly clear about its numbers. This annualized revenue calculation isn’t a software-as-a-service-era ARR calculation (as Akhund notes, historically ARR refers to predictable long-term contracts, but that doesn’t align with fintech’s model). Mercury’s annualized revenue figure takes monthly revenue, multiplies it by 12, Akhund said. The company added that it has now been GAAP profitable on both net-income and EBITDA for three consecutive years.

“As a general philosophy, I like being profitable,” Akhund said. “The point of building software companies is that we’re supposed to have high margins…I think it’s especially important in banking. There’s a lot of trust involved in banking, where we’re asking people to trust us with millions of dollars, the hard-won money they’ve raised. We have several companies on Mercury that have more than $100 million on our systems. That’s very high trust, and if they feel like we’re some crazy, cash-burning, irresponsible startup, that’s not something they’ll think of as a reliable platform.”

Trust is, indeed, hard to win and easy to lose in fintech, which has seen a number of scandals in recent years, including the seismic collapse of Synapse and Evolve. Mercury was tangled in that collapse, which reportedly triggered regulatory scrutiny of the unicorn. Asked about regulatory concerns, Akhund told Fortune that Mercury is investing heavily in compliance as the company grows, bringing in key compliance hires, including chief compliance officer Steve Pearlman. 

“What you have to do as a fintech at different scales is just different,” he said. “So, when we launched, we had nine people working with an external compliance consultant—and that was fine, because no one was using Mercury yet. Over time, as we’ve scaled, we’ve invested a lot more. At this stage, about 20% of our company is our risk and compliance teams.”

One of the key features of Mercury’s story is that it’s a startup whose story is inextricably tied to other startups. The company’s customers include ascendant startups—including Supabase, ElevenLabs, Lovable, Linear, Phantom, and Tempo—and that customer base is growing: Mercury’s seen 40% growth in customers through 2025, the company said. 

Additionally, Akhund himself has proven he has an eye for backing startups as an investor in his own right, including Rippling, Airtable, Rappi, Applied Intuition, and Substack. (He’s backed more than 350 startups since 2016 and in May announced he’d raised a $26 million venture fund of his own.) Investing on his own served as a reminder for Akhund of where he’s been, and where he’s going.

“It’s easy when you’re 1,000 people to start thinking a little slower,” he said. “It’s really always good to meet an entrepreneur: They have a team of three people, they’re going so hard, really trying to build something big with very few resources…Obviously, it’s harder to do things instantly when you have 200,000-plus customers. But it does give you the drive to go faster and explore things more.”

See you Monday,

Allie Garfinkle
X: @agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com
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Venture Deals

- Armis, a San Francisco-based cybersecurity company, raised $435 million in funding. Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives led the round and was joined by CapitalG and others.

- Synchron, a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based developer of non-surgical brain-computer interface technology, raised $200 million in Series D funding. Double Point Ventures led the round and was joined by ARCH Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Bezos Expeditions, and others.

- EdgeCortix, a Tokyo-based developer of AI processors, raised $110 million in Series B funding from TDK Ventures, Jane Street Global Trading, and others.

- Amae Health, a San Francisco-based care platform for severe mental illness, raised $25 million in funding. Altos Ventures led the round and was joined by Quiet Capital, Bling Capital, Cedars-Sinai Ventures, Healthier Capital, and 8VC.

- fomo, a New York City-based social-first crypto trading app, raised $17 million in Series A funding. Benchmark led the round.

- Flint, a New York City-based AI-powered education platform, raised $15 million in Series A funding. Basis Set Ventures and Patron led the round and were joined by others.

- Subtle Computing, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based voice-first computing platform, raised $6 million in seed funding. Entrada Ventures led the round and was joined by Amplify Partners, Abstract Ventures, and angel investors.

Private Equity

- Ardian agreed to acquire a 90% stake in centrotherm international, a Blaubeuren, Germany-based developer, manufacturer, and seller of high-temperature thermal processing equipment. Financial terms were not disclosed. 

- Five Arrows acquired a majority stake in NetVendor, a Tualatin, Ore.-based vendor credentialing and maintenance operations platform. Financial terms were not disclosed.

- JLL Partners acquired Parks Medical Electronics, an Aloha, Ore.-based manufacturer of Doppler ultrasound and vascular diagnostic systems. Financial terms were not disclosed.

People

- Overture Ventures, a Los Angeles-based venture capital firm, promoted Emma McDonagh to principal.