IMPRINT

Daragh Murphy grew up in Ireland and became a corporate lawyer in New York after studying at Duke. He kept looking at co-branded credit cards, the ones with a store name on them, and saw a mess.

The tech was old. The apps were awful.

The rewards were confusing. In September 2020 he teamed up with Gaurav Ahuja and Michael Pechman to build a better version from scratch.

The idea was simple. Give big brands a credit card program that feels like a real fintech product, not a leftover from 2005.

Brands want their own credit card. Building one is hard and boring.

Imprint does it for them. A store like H-E-B partners with Imprint, and Imprint builds the card, the app, and the rewards.

The actual card is issued through First Electronic Bank. Imprint makes money three ways.

Most of it comes from interest when people carry a balance. The rest comes from interchange fees on every swipe and the occasional late fee.

Imprint takes on the credit risk, which is the scary part most brands do not want.

The core product is a co-branded credit card program built for one specific brand. It includes the physical and virtual card, a mobile app, and a rewards engine.

Imprint handles the underwriting, servicing, and payments behind the scenes. Partners include H-E-B, Turkish Airlines, Eddie Bauer, Brooks Brothers, and Westgate Resorts.

Each gets a card that matches its own brand and rewards its own customers.

Imprint went after big, loyal customer bases instead of tiny startups. Landing H-E-B, a beloved Texas grocery chain, put its card in the wallets of serious repeat shoppers.

Turkish Airlines added a travel-rewards angle. The pitch to brands was speed and software.

Imprint could launch a modern card program fast, without the brand building its own fintech team. Each big partner brought a built-in audience, so growth came through the brands rather than expensive direct marketing.

Lending money is risky. Imprint holds the credit risk on every card it issues.

If cardholders stop paying, Imprint eats the losses. That makes it very exposed to the economy.

A recession could hit hard. It also competes with giants like Synchrony and Barclays, who have run co-branded card programs for decades.

Imprint has to prove that better software beats deep pockets and long relationships.

Imprint has raised around $225 million in equity. Thrive Capital led the $15 million seed in 2020.

Kleiner Perkins and Stripe co-led the Series A in 2021. Ribbit Capital led a $75 million Series B in 2023 at a $240 million valuation.

Then Keith Rabois at Khosla Ventures led another $75 million in the October 2024 Series C, tripling the valuation to $600 million. Affirm is also an investor.

That is a who's who of fintech money.