Sila, an API platform that offers payment infrastructure as a service while ensuring regulatory compliance, has acquired $13 million in capital through a Series A round that was by Revolution Venture.
Sila‘s latest investment round was joined by Madrona Venture Group, Oregon Venture Fund, Mucker Capital, and angel investors such as Wise co-founder Taavet Hinrikus. The Fintech firm has now raised a total of $20 million.
Established by Simple co-founder Shamir Karkal back in 2018, Sila aims to help application developers with incorporating regulatory compliant payment functionaility and capabilities into their line of products and services.
The company’s banking APIs aim to replace the requirement for integrating with traditional or legacy financial institutions, which Sila claims saves clients long months of development work as well as considerable cost savings when it comes to typical legal and regulatory needs.
The APIs offer an additional layer on top of the ACH network, with key applications for identity/Know-Your-Customer (KYC) checks, bank account linking, as well as online wallet deposits all integrated.
With many different clients – which reportedly includes startups to middle-market NYSE listed firms – now signing up, Sila’s management noted that they ended Q1 2021 by quadrupling transaction volume as well as doubling their employee headcount.
The proceeds from the round will be directed towards hiring new talent and bringing on additional business partners while also expanding product features.
Karkal remarked:
“Sila’s mission has always been to make money programmable. Access to the US banking system, especially for innovators and entrepreneurs, is extremely complex and prohibitive. The Sila Money API platform provides easy, scalable, and compliant money storage and money transfer.”
As covered in April 2020, Sila, a U.S.-based banking and payments API platform, announced that it had secured $7.7 million through its seed funding round, which was co-led by venture capital firms Madrona Venture Group and Oregon Venture Fund, with participation from Mucker Capital, 99 Tartans, Taavet Kinrikus, CEO & Co-founder of Transferwise, as well as investor and entrepreneur Jerry Neumann.
Founded in 2018, Sila describes itself as a fintech company dedicated to empowering developers with open source infrastructure tools. The company is also aiming to overhaul the financial service world by using advanced APIs and distributed ledger technology.