Mercury was founded in 2019 by Immad Akhund and launched with a clear goal: build a bank that startups actually want to use. Traditional business banking was slow, clunky, and designed for established companies — Mercury flipped that with a clean UI, API access, and features tailored to venture-backed startups.
Mercury isn’t technically a bank itself. It’s a fintech platform that partners with Evolve Bank & Trust and Choice Financial Group, both FDIC-insured institutions. That means deposits up to $5 million are insured through sweep networks, which was a big selling point during the 2023 banking panic after SVB’s collapse.
The platform offers checking and savings accounts, wire transfers, team-based account permissions, and built-in Treasury products for companies sitting on large cash balances. Mercury Treasury invests idle funds in US Treasuries and money market funds. The company also introduced Mercury Venture Debt and Mercury Personal for founders.
By 2024, Mercury had processed over $100 billion in transactions and served more than 200,000 startups. The company was valued at $3.5 billion. Its user base spans seed-stage companies to Series D startups. Mercury is headquartered in San Francisco, with a largely remote team spread across the US.
