Mercury
The startup bank that is not yet a bank. Profitable, valued at $5.2B, and two regulators into a three-regulator path to its own charter.
Mercury Series D release, May 20, 2026- Valuation
- $5.2B Series D, May 2026, up 49% from $3.5B in March 2025.
- Raised
- About $700M primary and secondary combined, since 2017.
- Revenue
- $650M run-rate annualized in Q3 2025, monthly revenue times 12. Profitable four years running.
- Watch
- Bank charter OCC and FDIC conditional approvals in hand; the Federal Reserve has not yet signed off.
- AI
- Agents can act ChatGPT and Claude can move money in Mercury since Oct 2026, after the customer approves.
- Liquidity
- Tender planned Part of the 2025 round was secondary; a broader staff tender was promised. No completed tender found.
- Hiring
- 66 → 69 remote listings since Oct 10.
A bank account built as software, run on partner banks.
Mercury is a fintech, not an FDIC-insured bank. Accounts sit at Choice Financial Group and Column N.A. It adds cards, invoicing, accounting, payroll and an AI assistant on top. Mercury does not publish a revenue split.
Mercury Series D release, May 20, 2026- 1The default bank for new startupsOver 300,000 customers; Mercury says one in three US startups banks with it, by its own Crunchbase-based count.Mercury Series D release, May 20, 2026
- 2One account that keeps adding the next toolPayroll (via the Central purchase) launched Oct 20, 2026, after Mercury Books in Sept and instant payments in Aug.Mercury release notes
- 3Profitable, so it does not need to raiseFour straight years of GAAP net income and EBITDA profit, per the company.Mercury Series D release, May 20, 2026
- Capital One$123Blisted, Oct 30 close
- Ramp$44.0Bprivate, Jun 4
- SoFi$21.6Blisted, Oct 30 close
- Chime$10.6Blisted, Oct 30 close
- Mercury$5.20BSeries D, May 20
- Bill Holdings$4.15Blisted, Oct 30 close
Private values are the last reported round; they can be stale. Listed values are market value. Bars start at zero.
Run a business and want to try Mercury yourself?Sign up for Mercury ↗Referral link: we may be paid if you sign up. It does not change anything on this page.
Every round, and what its terms give away.
Mercury is private, so there is no share price. What its investors paid, and on what terms, is the closest thing to one.
- $5.20B
- latest valuation, Series D May 20
- $700M
- raised in all
- $650M
- run-rate, as of Sep 30
- 850
- employees, as reported
GAAP net income and EBITDA positive four years in a row, per the company. 2024 revenue was $500M.
Mercury Series D release; employees from TechCrunch, Mar 2025Post-money valuations as reported. The line starts at zero. Rounds without a reported valuation are left off.
- May 20Series D$200M at $5.20BLed by TCV. About 4% of the company, if all new sharesExisting investors a16z, Coatue, CRV, Sapphire, Sequoia and Spark joined. Form D shows $200M of new equity sold, first sale May 8.Mercury release, May 20, 2026; SEC Form D
- Mar 25Series C$300M at $3.50BLed by Sequoia Capital. About 9% of the company, if all new sharesMix of primary and secondary. Form D shows $200M of new equity, so roughly $100M was likely secondary (our arithmetic).Mercury blog, Mar 25, 2025; SEC Form D Apr 11, 2025
- Jul 28Series B$120M at $1.62BLed by Coatue. About 7% of the company, if all new sharesIncluded a $5M slice that customers could buy into via Wefunder.Mercury blog, Jul 28, 2021
- Sep 26Series A$20M at $100MLed by CRV. About 20% of the company, if all new sharesAfter a $6M seed led by Andreessen Horowitz.TechCrunch, Sep 26, 2019
- Down round or flat round?Up round. $5.2B in May 2026 against $3.5B in March 2025, a 49% step-up. The 2025 round itself doubled the 2021 price of $1.62B.Mercury Series D release, May 20, 2026Clear
- How much of the company the last round soldAbout 3.8% ($200M of $5.2B post-money). Small for a Series D, consistent with a profitable company raising for its bank.SEC Form D, May 20, 2026Clear
- Time since the last raiseAbout five months (May 2026). The gap before it was 14 months.Mercury Series D release, May 20, 2026Clear
- Structured or unusual termsNo liquidation preference, ratchet or warrant terms have been reported. Form D lists plain equity, no debt or options. Share price not disclosed.SEC Form D, May 20, 2026Open
- New outside lead or insiders only?New lead: TCV had not invested before. Six existing investors also joined.Freshfields, May 21, 2026Clear
- Employee liquidityThe 2025 round included secondary, and the CEO said a broader employee tender would come later. No completed tender, date or price found.TechCrunch, Mar 26, 2025Open
- Layoffs in the last 12 monthsSearched news and coverage of the 2026 round, charter and Central deal: no Mercury layoffs reported. Headcount was 850 in March 2025, with plans to pass 1,000.TechCrunch, Mar 2025; news search Nov 1, 2026Clear
Clear: checked, nothing found. Flag: found, with the source. Open: could not be checked.
No filing reported
What the record says, and what we think it means.
The fact is the source's. The read, in italics, is ours.
- 01Good
Two of three regulators have said yes to Mercury Bank.
Banking Dive, Sep 10, 2026Applied Dec 2025. OCC conditional approval Apr 28, 2026; FDIC conditional deposit insurance Sep 2026, needing $300M of starting capital. The Fed's holding company approval is still pending; opening projected for 2027.
A charter would let Mercury hold deposits itself instead of renting partner banks. Expect bank-style compliance hiring and rules. Conditional approvals can still stall.
- 02Neutral
A former SoFi Bank CFO will run the bank.
Retail Banker International, Apr 28, 2026Jon Auxier is chief banking officer and proposed CEO of Mercury Bank, N.A., to be based in Utah. He was CFO of SoFi Bank and earlier at Green Dot and Goldman Sachs.
SoFi is the closest template: a fintech that bought its way to a charter. Auxier has seen that path from the inside.
- 03Watch
It left Evolve, the bank behind the Synapse collapse.
American Banker, Mar 2025Mercury ended its Evolve relationship on Mar 12, 2025 and moved customers to Choice and Column in cohorts. It had stopped sending new customers to Evolve in 2022.
Mercury got out before the worst of the fallout reached it, but the episode shows the risk of depending on partner banks. That is the case for the charter.
- 04Watch
A two-way legal fight with bankrupt Synapse.
Fortune, Mar 7, 2025Mercury claimed Synapse withheld about $30M of revenue; Synapse countersued for more than $36M. Mercury denies moving any excess funds in the migration.
No ruling found. The money involved is small next to $650M of run-rate revenue, but a loss would be a reputational echo of Synapse.
- 05Watch
It cut off founders in dozens of countries in 2024.
TechCrunch, Jul 23, 2024In July 2024 Mercury closed accounts tied to addresses or activity in restricted countries, including Nigeria, Ukraine and Croatia. Regulators had reportedly faulted partner bank Choice over overseas accounts.
Compliance tightened under pressure from the partner bank's regulators. About 20% of staff now work in risk and compliance, per a 2025 interview.
- 06Good
Bought a payroll startup, then shipped payroll.
Mercury blog, Apr 2, 2026Mercury acquired Central, an AI payroll and benefits startup, on Apr 2, 2026; price not disclosed. Mercury Payroll launched Oct 20, 2026 in all 50 states.
Payroll moves Mercury from where startups keep money to where they spend it, against Gusto, Rippling and Ramp.
- 07Neutral
Its closest rival sold to a bank at a discount.
Simpson Thacher, Jan 23, 2026Capital One agreed in Jan 2026 to buy Brex for $5.15B in cash and stock, against a reported 2022 peak of $12.3B.
Sets a price marker near Mercury's own $5.2B. Brex now has a big bank's balance sheet behind it.
- 08Good
Most new customers are not tech startups.
Mercury Series D release, May 20, 2026Over 73% of new customers come from outside AI and tech startups. Applications rose 2.5x in Q1 2026 from a year earlier.
Less exposed to a venture funding downturn than its startup image suggests.
Product is paid 29% over market. People, 1% under.
We save every company's roles, pay by team and level, AI share and churn every day, so each month this page can say more. Sparklines use their own scale.
Can AI agents do business with Mercury?
We checked the agent payment programs, developer docs and site rules an AI assistant would meet.
Ahead of most banks. Agents can already move money, with a human approving.
Still Remote read- YesAn MCP server for AI agentsHosted Mercury MCP (beta) over OAuth. Reads balances, statements and transactions; with permission it prepares payments and edits categories.Mercury docs, updated Oct 8, 2026
- YesChatGPT and Claude can act on accountsSince Oct 15, 2026 users can ask either to move money, pay a recipient or categorize transactions. Nothing runs until the user approves.Mercury release notes, Oct 15, 2026
- YesIts own in-app AI agentCommand, launched Jun 16, 2026, does tasks from plain-English requests and stages each action for confirmation.FF News, Jun 16, 2026
- MixedDocs that AI tools can readdocs.mercury.com publishes an llms.txt index of its API and MCP guides. mercury.com/llms.txt returns 410 Gone.checked Nov 1, 2026
- YesLets AI crawlers read its siteNo AI bots named. robots.txt only blocks a few query-string URLs for everyone.checked Nov 1, 2026
- Not foundAgent payment protocols (Google AP2, OpenAI/Stripe ACP, Visa or Mastercard agent programs)No announcement found tying Mercury to any of them. Its agent route is MCP plus approvals.Searched Nov 1, 2026
Where Mercury puts AI to work.
- 1Coding agents take routine ticketsSince a March 2025 hackathon, engineers can hand Linear issues to coding agents that return pull requests. Humans still review and approve every merge.Linear, Jul 16, 2025
- 2AI is now the front door of the productCommand answers with links to the underlying data and hands off to human support from the chat.FF News, Jun 16, 2026
More listings than on Sep 7, led by engineering.
What Mercury puts on its own channel.
Short videos from Mercury's official YouTube channel, played here. We only use a channel that links demo.mercury.com and carries the company's name.
- Give your team cards without giving up control11 views
- How to open a U.S. business bank account as an international founder417 views
- Before launching Mercury Payroll, we asked founders at SF Tech Week about their first hire.90 views
- Asking accountants for the most unhinged expense requests they’ve ever received536 views
- Money is your material. Give it shape.113 views
- Saloni and Vinayak | Modern Money287 views
- Reshma and Tima | Modern Money267 views
- Mica and John | Modern Money66 views
What has to be true for $5.2 billion to hold?
The starting revenue is Mercury's own reported figure. A way to think, not a forecast, and not investment advice.
At 8x, Mercury needs $650 million of revenue to be worth $5.2 billion. Your world gets there with $1.3 billion, so the next round likely prices above the last.
$100,000 of equity valued at the $5.20B Series D price would be worth about $196,000 on paper in this world, before dilution from new rounds, taxes and vesting. Private shares only turn into cash at a sale, an IPO or a tender offer.
A way to think, not a forecast, and not investment advice.
Mercury Series D release, May 20, 2026The signals, and which way they push.
- TailwindBecoming a real bank.
OCC and FDIC conditional approvals, a $300M capital condition, and a former SoFi Bank CFO to run it. Zelle and more lending are planned once it opens.
- TailwindShipping fast across the finance stack.
Instant payments (Aug), accounting (Sep), agent actions and payroll (Oct 2026), all in one quarter.
- HeadwindRamp is pulling away on price.
Ramp was valued at $44B in June 2026, over eight times Mercury, and competes for the same startup finance teams.
- HeadwindPartner-bank risk until the charter lands.
Accounts still sit at Choice and Column; Choice drew regulator scrutiny over Mercury accounts in 2024, and the Evolve exit took months.
Where Mercury ends up, if we had to bet.
Our calls, not facts. Each one is tied to something that already happened, so you can judge the reasoning.
- 1
Mercury lists on a US exchange by 2031, after the bank is open.
Coin flip 50%IPOIt is profitable, has grown its price fast, and a fresh charter usually comes first. But it raised in May 2026 without needing to, and no filing or banker hire has been reported.
Mercury Series D release; Banking Dive - 2
A large bank buys Mercury the way Capital One bought Brex.
Long shot 16%M&ABrex sold for $5.15B in Jan 2026, so there is a template. But Mercury is profitable and chasing its own charter, which points to independence.
Simpson Thacher, Jan 2026 - 3
Lending becomes a major Mercury revenue line once the bank opens.
Likely 72%ProductsThe charter plan names an expanded lending suite for businesses and individuals. Holding its own deposits is what makes lending profitable.
Retail Banker International, Apr 2026 - 4
Most Mercury payments are started by an AI agent, with a human tapping approve.
Likely 72%AICommand, a write-capable MCP server and ChatGPT and Claude actions all shipped in 2026. The approve-first design is what regulators will want to see.
Mercury docs and release notes - 5
Mercury and Ramp end up selling nearly the same all-in-one finance stack.
Coin flip 50%CompetitionMercury added payroll, accounting and cards; Ramp has grown into a $44B spend platform. The overlap grows each quarter.
SiliconANGLE; Mercury release notes
Read by the Still Remote research agent on November 1, 2026 from the sources linked on this page. Facts and scenarios only, not investment advice.