Latest news with #VictorCardenas
Finextra
22-05-2025
- Business
- Finextra
Slash raises $41m for 'vertical banking'
Slash has raised $41 million at a $370 million valuation for its business banking platform that promises to end the one-size-fits-all model and instead provide bespoke offerings for different industries. 0 Goodwater Partners, NEA and Menlo Ventures joined the round for Slash, which comes after a 2023 $19 million Series A. Slash started out serving sneaker resellers but, little over a year ago, it was hit by the fallout from Kanye West's anti-Semitic outbursts, which led to the rapper losing his Adidas partnership, which in turn saw the startup's revenue fall to the tune of 80%, co-founder Victor Cardenas tells Fortune. Slash pivoted to serving larger businesses, targeting their "deepest, vertical specific financial needs," says Cardenas in a blog. This vertical approach separates it from other business banking fintechs such as Ramp and Mercury, which have a horizontal method. Slash first went after marketing specialists that run ads for e-commerce firms and has since added crypto businesses, helping them to toggle between fiat and crypto. Says Cardenas: "In essence, we believe most banking products in the market today are too 'cookie cutter' and don't do enough to solve their customers' problems. Legacy banks compete exclusively on the basis of high yields, rewards, and relationships. "Other fintechs go further, and couple their banking + card products with bill pay, invoicing and expense management solutions. Their products, however, are industry agnostic: they're the same for restaurants, construction companies, property managers, e-commerce brands, and crypto companies - even though the underlying needs of each vary wildly." With the new funding in place, Slash plans to become the "largest commercial card in America" by building apps for dozens of categories, such as online travel and property management.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Slash uses AI to build custom banking tools for niche industries
A fintech company called Slash offers business banking accounts tailored to the needs of specific kinds of entrepreneurs. Zillow: Housing market to see first annual U.S. home price drop since 2011 This ex-Tesla employee just launched a cheap electric motorcycle 4 free Coursera courses to jump-start your AI journey Slash provides business checking accounts with funds held at FDIC-insured banks, detailed spending analytics dashboards, free or low-cost wire and ACH transfers, easy access to lending options, and unlimited virtual cards. These cards can be configured with specific spending limits, merchants, and merchant categories to prevent unauthorized or erroneous employee purchases. That control, along with metadata from Slash's integrations with popular accounting platforms, makes it easier for bookkeepers to classify transactions. The company also offers a range of add-ons built for particular industries—something like an app store for banking—designed to address the unique pain points of different types of businesses. 'The insight behind Slash is the work that an accountant [does] at a construction company, or a marketing agency, or a property manager looks very, very different from one another,' says CEO Victor Cardenas. Marketing agencies, for example, often take money from clients to spend on platforms like Google and Facebook. Traditionally, they would use a single business checking account and rely on internal systems to track how much was received, how much had been spent, and when to request more funds. With Slash, agencies can create virtual accounts for each client, allowing both parties to see the remaining balance. They can even trigger automatic billing for more marketing funds—plus the agency fee—when the balance runs low. The approach is popular: Slash reports that more than 1% of global ad spending on Facebook is conducted using a Slash card. 'We basically make it much easier for agencies to put their accounts receivable on autopilot,' Cardenas says. Other industries have their own challenges. Contractors in fields like plumbing or HVAC often give technicians credit cards for fueling up, but want to prevent personal purchases—even inside gas stations. Slash enables businesses to restrict cards to fuel purchases only and ties each transaction to a specific driver or vehicle. 'We can make it so an owner can basically say, I want this card to only be able to be used to buy gas at the pump and not inside of the station,' Cardenas says. 'And then we get data at the time of clearing of the transaction around the actual fuel grade, what the kind of fuel was, and we're able to pass that on and show that to our customers.' Other users include online travel agents, who generate virtual cards to pay hotels and vendors. For businesses dealing with cryptocurrency, Slash enables sending and receiving stablecoin payments—without needing a separate crypto platform. Slash also offers an API that lets customers build custom dashboards, trigger payments through internal systems, or, in the case of e-commerce marketplaces, automatically transfer funds to vendors when goods are sold. Cardenas says the rise of AI-powered coding tools has allowed Slash to rapidly release features tailored to different industries. The company started in 2021 with a focus on sole proprietors, but pivoted in late 2023 to serve larger businesses in specific verticals. On Tuesday, it announced a $41 million Series B funding round, valuing the company at $370 million. Thanks to AI, Slash can now ship features at a pace that would have been difficult just a few years ago, while leveraging its existing banking infrastructure and relationships. 'It's becoming trivial to build software, but it's not trivial to stand up a card issuing and banking program,' Cardenas says. 'And so while we're ahead, we want to build solutions for as many industries as quickly as possible.' This post originally appeared at to get the Fast Company newsletter: Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Fast Company
20-05-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
Slash uses AI to build custom banking tools for niche industries
A fintech company called Slash offers business banking accounts tailored to the needs of specific kinds of entrepreneurs. Slash provides business checking accounts with funds held at FDIC-insured banks, detailed spending analytics dashboards, free or low-cost wire and ACH transfers, easy access to lending options, and unlimited virtual cards. These cards can be configured with specific spending limits, merchants, and merchant categories to prevent unauthorized or erroneous employee purchases. That control, along with metadata from Slash's integrations with popular accounting platforms, makes it easier for bookkeepers to classify transactions. The company also offers a range of add-ons built for particular industries—something like an app store for banking—designed to address the unique pain points of different types of businesses. 'The insight behind Slash is the work that an accountant [does] at a construction company, or a marketing agency, or a property manager looks very, very different from one another,' says CEO Victor Cardenas. Marketing agencies, for example, often take money from clients to spend on platforms like Google and Facebook. Traditionally, they would use a single business checking account and rely on internal systems to track how much was received, how much had been spent, and when to request more funds. With Slash, agencies can create virtual accounts for each client, allowing both parties to see the remaining balance. They can even trigger automatic billing for more marketing funds—plus the agency fee—when the balance runs low. The approach is popular: Slash reports that more than 1% of global ad spending on Facebook is conducted using a Slash card. 'We basically make it much easier for agencies to put their accounts receivable on autopilot,' Cardenas says. Other industries have their own challenges. Contractors in fields like plumbing or HVAC often give technicians credit cards for fueling up, but want to prevent personal purchases—even inside gas stations. Slash enables businesses to restrict cards to fuel purchases only and ties each transaction to a specific driver or vehicle. 'We can make it so an owner can basically say, I want this card to only be able to be used to buy gas at the pump and not inside of the station,' Cardenas says. 'And then we get data at the time of clearing of the transaction around the actual fuel grade, what the kind of fuel was, and we're able to pass that on and show that to our customers.' Other users include online travel agents, who generate virtual cards to pay hotels and vendors. For businesses dealing with cryptocurrency, Slash enables sending and receiving stablecoin payments —without needing a separate crypto platform. Slash also offers an API that lets customers build custom dashboards, trigger payments through internal systems, or, in the case of e-commerce marketplaces, automatically transfer funds to vendors when goods are sold. Cardenas says the rise of AI-powered coding tools has allowed Slash to rapidly release features tailored to different industries. The company started in 2021 with a focus on sole proprietors, but pivoted in late 2023 to serve larger businesses in specific verticals. On Tuesday, it announced a $41 million Series B funding round, valuing the company at $370 million. Thanks to AI, Slash can now ship features at a pace that would have been difficult just a few years ago, while leveraging its existing banking infrastructure and relationships. 'It's becoming trivial to build software, but it's not trivial to stand up a card issuing and banking program,' Cardenas says. 'And so while we're ahead, we want to build solutions for as many industries as quickly as possible.'
