The news: Mercury—a fintech that serves startups, VC firms, and small businesses with banking products and services—announced $650 million in annualized revenue for 2025, up 30% from 2024’s year-end $500 million. It expects to have turned a profit for three consecutive years.
How we got here: The fintech, which was last valued at $3.5 billion, started in B2B banking in 2017. It has since grown from deposit accounts into credit cards, treasury management, working capital loans, venture debt financing, and personal banking. Mercury now competes directly with Brex and Ramp, which have expanded from financial operations into banking products and services.
Zooming out: Businesses increasingly expect a comprehensive financial operations and banking stack. Fintechs are bundling invoicing, bill pay, expense management, and banking products and services into single solutions, displacing banks for many basic business financial products and third-party software for financial management. Banks, many of whom put relationships ahead of software to engage business customers, are unprepared for this paradigm shift.
Most banks are stuck with a dated model for business banking, especially when it comes to serving the tech-forward startups, VCs, and small businesses that newcomers like Mercury cater to. They are getting squeezed by fintechs that turn business applications into banking services and then business applications—unless they specialize in segments that require a relationship model that fintechs can’t replicate.
Our take: Some banks have invested heavily in digital for business customers, betting that more sophisticated self-service will support market share growth. These investments mean that the business digital experience is increasingly a differentiator between banks. But it’s a half measure.
This approach to growth is fighting the last war to avoid irrelevance—by catching up to where competitors are today. Banks should also think differently about their market and understand where digital services alone won’t meet customer needs.