
San Francisco-based fintech Cardless has introduced its credit card platform and secured a financial support of over $10m to support its development.
The platform of Cardless will help brands launch and manage custom co-branded credit cards and reward loyal customers.
The company, founded in 2019 by Michael Spelfogel and Scott Kazmierowicz, said that its platform will enable brands to roll out co-branded credits in less than seven weeks.
It will do so by integrating distributed-systems technology with a network of banks and issuers.
The firm employs a “collective bargaining approach to credit cards” to transfer risk from a single lender to multiple capital sources in a bid to provide a better proposition at a reduced cost.
Cardless is said to be the first new mass-market credit card firm to have launched in over 25 years, after Capital One Financial.
Cardless has secured over $10m investment from a group of investors since its inception. The firm’s backers include Greycroft, Accomplice, Clocktower Ventures, and Pear.
Using the capital, the firm plans to develop its platform and grow its team, including engineering, operations, compliance, and risk talent.
Spelfogel noted: “Cardless lets brands launch fantastic co-branded credit cards with a committed partner in well under two months. Legacy banks are ill-suited to partner with digital brands and cater to tech-savvy customers.
“As an employee of Lyft, I watched the pain first-hand as they tried to partner with Synchrony to build a credit card, which ultimately never launched. Scott and I quickly recognised a void in the marketplace and knew we could make a product that cut out the years of development time and aligned our interests with consumers, not against them.”