Lithic
Provides a B2B card-issuing platform for companies to build payment products.
Website: https://www.lithic.com/
Open sources
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | Lithic |
| Tagline | Provides a B2B card-issuing platform for companies to build payment products. |
| Headquarters | New York, New York |
| Founded | 2014 |
| Stage | Series C |
| Business Model | API / Developer Platform |
| Industry | Fintech |
| Technology | Software (Non-AI) |
| Geography | North America |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding Team | Co-Founders (3+) |
| Funding Label | $50M+ (total disclosed ~$61,000,000) |
Links
Open sources
- Website: https://www.lithic.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lithic
- X / Twitter: https://twitter.com/lithic
- Privacy.com App: https://privacy.com
What an Investor Needs First
Open sources
Lithic provides a B2B card-issuing platform that enables companies to build and launch their own payment products, a strategic pivot from its consumer-facing Privacy.com origins that positions it in a high-growth segment of fintech infrastructure [TechCrunch, May 2021]. The company’s transition, completed with a rebrand in May 2021, was underpinned by a proven ability to handle payment volume at scale, having crossed $1 billion in annual charge card volume [LinkedIn, accessed 2026].
Founded in 2014, the company initially launched Privacy.com, a consumer service that generated unique virtual card numbers for safer online spending. This product served as a live technical demonstration, issuing over 10 million virtual card numbers by May 2021 and validating the underlying infrastructure [TechCrunch, May 2021]. The core offering is now an API-first platform that allows clients, including digital banks and fintechs, to issue physical, virtual, and tokenized cards while managing the full program lifecycle [Contrary Research, accessed 2026].
The founding trio of Bo Jiang (CEO), Jason Kruse (CTO), and David Nichols (CDO) have led the company through this evolution, building the initial consumer product and its underlying technology stack [Privacy.com, accessed September 2026]. To fund its B2B expansion, Lithic has raised a total of $110 million, including a $43 million Series B led by Bessemer Venture Partners in 2021 and a subsequent $60 million Series C led by Stripes [Lithic Blog], [Fintech Futures]. Its business model is based on providing this infrastructure as a service to other businesses.
Over the next 12-18 months, the key watchpoints are the depth of its enterprise client adoption beyond the reported 100+ clients, the competitive response from established players like Marqeta and Stripe Issuing, and the company’s ability to use its recent Series C capital to accelerate growth and capture market share in the crowded card-issuing space.
Verified against public records -- Core claims (funding, rebrand, volume, card issuance) are confirmed by TechCrunch and company sources. The $1B volume figure is sourced from a company executive's LinkedIn.
Taxonomy Snapshot
| Axis | Value |
|---|---|
| Stage | Series C |
| Business Model | API / Developer Platform |
| Industry / Vertical | Fintech |
| Technology Type | Software (Non-AI) |
| Geography | North America |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding Team | Co-Founders (3+) |
| Funding | $50M+ (total disclosed ~$61,000,000) |
Inside the Company
Open sources
Lithic’s corporate history is defined by a sharp, deliberate pivot from a direct-to-consumer application to a wholesale infrastructure provider. The company was founded in 2014 and operated for years under the brand Privacy.com, a consumer service that allowed users to generate unique virtual card numbers for online transactions to enhance privacy and control recurring subscriptions [TechCrunch, May 2021]. This initial product served as a live proving ground for the underlying card-issuing technology, scaling to over 10 million virtual card numbers issued by May 2021 [TechCrunch, May 2021].
The formal rebrand to Lithic in May 2021 marked the strategic shift to a pure B2B model. The company repositioned its core offering as a developer-first card-issuing platform, enabling other companies to build payment products like digital banking and expense management solutions [TechCrunch, May 2021]. Headquarters remain in New York, New York, where the founding team of Bo Jiang (CEO), David Nichols (CDO), and Jason Kruse (CTO) continues to lead the business [TechCrunch, May 2021] [Privacy.com, September 2026].
Key operational milestones trace the scaling of both the consumer and enterprise sides of the business. The company crossed $1 billion in annual charge card volume and helped its customers generate over $20 million in annual interchange revenue, according to a company executive’s LinkedIn profile [LinkedIn, Julian Ranz, accessed 2026]. The consumer-facing Privacy.com service also maintains a significant user base, with over 3,300 customer reviews on Trustpilot [Trustpilot, accessed 2026].
Verified against public records -- Core founding, rebrand, and milestone facts are confirmed by TechCrunch and company executive profiles.
Under the Hood
Reported and inferred
Lithic's product evolution is a case study in platform use. The company began with a direct-to-consumer application, Privacy.com, which allowed users to generate unique virtual card numbers for online transactions. This product served as a live, scaled demonstration of its core card-issuing technology, processing over 10 million virtual card numbers by mid-2021 [TechCrunch, May 2021]. The subsequent strategic pivot to a B2B focus repackaged this proven infrastructure as a developer-first API platform. Lithic now provides the underlying rails for companies to issue physical, tokenized, and virtual cards, enabling them to build branded payment products like digital banking apps, expense management tools, and rewards programs [Contrary Research] [CB Insights].
The technology stack centers on API-driven card program management. A key technical differentiator is its integration with Visa's network via the Visa Card Program Enrollment (VCPE) API, which provides direct access to Visa Account Level Management (ALM) capabilities [FF News]. This allows enterprise clients to exert granular control over card parameters and transaction flows. The platform's architecture supports a range of deployment models, from virtual-only programs to hybrid physical and digital card issuance. A notable partnership with Lightspark demonstrates an advanced use case, enabling a Visa card program to settle transactions in the USDC stablecoin [Lightspark].
- Core API surfaces. The Card Issuing API, which spent a year in beta before a broader launch, allows corporate customers to issue virtual cards and manage expenses programmatically [TechCrunch, July 2020].
- Consumer product legacy. The Privacy.com service continues to operate, providing a public reference implementation that showcases features like merchant-locked card numbers, spend limits, and single-click card pause/deletion for subscription management [Privacy.com] [Honest Brand Reviews].
- Platform scope. The infrastructure is designed to let companies own the end-customer relationship entirely, offering a white-labeled or co-branded card program rather than a reseller model [Contrary Research].
Verified against public records -- Product claims and technical integrations are confirmed by company sources, partner announcements, and multiple press reports.
Market Research
Reported and inferred The shift toward embedded finance and programmable money movement has transformed card-issuing from a back-office banking function into a core component of digital product strategy.
Third-party sizing for the specific B2B card-issuing platform market is not available in the cited sources. Analysts can use analogous public market data as a proxy. The global digital payments market, a broader category, was valued at over $96 trillion in transaction value in 2023 and is projected to grow at a compound annual rate above 15% through 2030 [McKinsey, 2023]. A more direct comparison is the addressable market for commercial card payments in the United States, which exceeded $1.2 trillion in purchase volume in 2023 [Nilson Report, 2024]. The segment for virtual commercial cards, a core product for platforms like Lithic, is growing at a significantly faster rate as businesses adopt digital payment controls.
The primary demand driver is the proliferation of fintechs and digital banks that require modern, API-first infrastructure to launch card programs. Legacy systems are often slow to integrate and lack the flexibility for use cases like expense management, corporate disbursements, and rewards. A secondary driver is the enterprise push for better spend controls and fraud mitigation, which virtual and tokenized cards provide by design. The growth of real-time payment rails and stablecoin settlements, evidenced by Lithic's partnership with Lightspark [Lightspark], represents an emerging tailwind for next-generation infrastructure that can bridge traditional and digital asset ecosystems.
Key adjacent markets include buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) platforms, which often issue virtual cards at point-of-sale, and payroll providers disbursing wages via card. Substitute solutions exist in the form of traditional banking partnerships or in-house program management, but these typically involve higher fixed costs and longer development cycles, creating the wedge for API platforms. The regulatory environment is a defining force; card-issuing is a regulated activity requiring sponsorship by a bank. Platforms like Lithic must maintain these bank partnerships, and regulatory scrutiny on fintech-bank relationships, particularly concerning compliance and risk management, is a constant operational factor [PUBLIC].
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| U.S. Commercial Card Purchase Volume (2023) | 1200 $B |
| Global Digital Payments Market Value (2023) | 96 $T |
The proxy data underscores the sheer scale of payment flows moving through digital channels. For a platform enabling a slice of this activity, even a fractional take-rate can support a substantial business, provided it can capture meaningful volume.
Partially corroborated -- Market sizing is based on analogous, broader industry reports. Specific TAM for the B2B issuing platform segment is not independently verified.
Competition and Substitutes
Reported and inferred Lithic's competitive position is defined by its pivot from a consumer privacy tool to a B2B card-issuing platform, a move that places it directly against established infrastructure providers and newer API-first challengers.
| Company | Positioning | Stage / Funding | Notable Differentiator | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lithic | B2B card-issuing API platform, evolved from consumer virtual card product Privacy.com. | Series C; total funding $110M (estimated) [Lithic Blog]. | Direct experience scaling a consumer virtual card product to over 10M numbers; focus on developer experience and program customization. | [TechCrunch, May 2021] |
| Marqeta | Publicly traded, full-stack modern card issuing and processing platform. | Public (NASDAQ: MQ); raised $528M pre-IPO. | Extensive global processing network, large-scale enterprise deals (e.g., DoorDash, Square), and a broader suite of banking and lending services. | [CB Insights] |
| Highnote | Card issuing and processing platform built as a single, unified API. | Series B; $97M total funding. | Emphasizes a fully integrated stack (issuing, processing, program management) to reduce partner dependencies and complexity. | [CB Insights] |
| Stripe Issuing | Card issuing product embedded within Stripe's broader payments ecosystem. | Part of Stripe (Private). | Deep integration with Stripe's ubiquitous payments, billing, and treasury rails, offering a smooth experience for existing Stripe merchants. | [Stripe] |
| Galileo | Long-standing card issuing and digital banking platform (owned by SoFi). | Acquired by SoFi in 2020. | Deep backend processing expertise, particularly in debit and prepaid programs, with a large incumbent client base in neobanking. | [CB Insights] |
The competitive map splits into three tiers. At the top are scaled incumbents like Marqeta and Galileo, which offer mature, enterprise-grade platforms with extensive compliance and processing networks. The middle tier consists of API-native challengers, including Lithic, Highnote, and Stripe Issuing, which compete on developer experience, faster integration times, and modern architecture. Adjacent substitutes include broader payment processors like Adyen Issuing, which adds card issuing to its merchant-acquiring suite, and regional players like Enfuce in Europe.
Lithic's defensible edge today stems from its unique origin story. The operational knowledge gained from scaling Privacy.com to issue over 10 million virtual card numbers [TechCrunch, May 2021] provides tangible, battle-tested experience in fraud management, user experience, and card lifecycle operations that pure B2B infrastructure startups lack. This edge is durable if the company can effectively productize that experience into its B2B API. However, it is perishable if competitors simply hire similar talent or if the specific challenges of consumer scaling become less relevant to enterprise sales cycles.
The company's most significant exposure is in distribution and capital. Competitors like Stripe Issuing own a massive, embedded merchant base, while Marqeta commands the enterprise sales relationships and capital reserves to compete on price and custom development. Lithic does not own a dominant distribution channel and must build its sales motion from scratch. Furthermore, while its $110 million in total funding [Lithic Blog] is substantial, it is outpaced by the war chests of both public competitors and privately backed rivals like Highnote, which could fund more aggressive product expansion or pricing strategies.
Over the next 18 months, the most plausible competitive scenario hinges on specialization. The winner in the mid-market segment will be the platform that most effectively reduces the time-to-market for fintechs launching card products. If Lithic can use its consumer-grade UX insights to offer the most intuitive and flexible API for developers building targeted financial apps, it could carve out a defensible niche. The loser in this scenario would be a generic platform that fails to differentiate on either price or unique capability, getting squeezed from above by enterprise suites and below by more focused, developer-centric tools. Lithic's path avoids a direct feature war with Marqeta and instead competes on the elegance of solving specific, complex use cases for its over 100 clients.
Partially corroborated -- Competitor profiles and funding are widely reported, but Lithic's specific client wins and detailed feature differentiators are not extensively documented in public sources.
Opportunity
Open sources Lithic's opportunity rests on becoming the default API for any company, not just fintechs, that wants to embed programmable payments into its product.
The headline opportunity is for Lithic to become the category-defining infrastructure for embedded card issuance, serving as the rails for a generation of software companies that want to own financial interactions with their customers. The evidence that makes this outcome reachable, rather than aspirational, is the company's proven ability to scale a consumer-grade virtual card product to over 10 million issued numbers [TechCrunch, May 2021]. That operational experience, combined with the strategic pivot to a developer-first B2B platform, provides a foundation to replicate that scale for enterprise clients. The recent partnership with Lightspark to launch a Visa card program that settles in USDC demonstrates an ability to innovate at the infrastructure layer for new asset classes, a key differentiator in attracting forward-looking clients [Lightspark].
Lithic's path to massive scale could follow several concrete scenarios, each with a distinct catalyst.
| Scenario | What happens | Catalyst | Why it's plausible |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Fintech Factory | Lithic becomes the go-to issuer for venture-scale fintechs and neobanks launching card products. | A flagship partnership with a top-tier digital bank or a major product launch from an existing client like a crypto platform. | The company already serves over 100 clients including digital banks and fintechs, and its API-first approach is tailored for fast-moving tech companies. |
| The Enterprise Expense OS | Lithic's platform is adopted by large corporations as the core system for managing virtual cards for vendor payments and employee expenses. | A Fortune 500 company publicly selects Lithic to replace legacy procurement or T&E systems. | The platform's infrastructure to issue physical, tokenized, and virtual cards for managing expenses is a direct fit for this use case [Contrary Research]. |
| The Regulatory Arbitrage | New regulations or network rules create demand for specialized issuing partners, and Lithic's agility allows it to capture new verticals first. | A change in Visa/Mastercard rules for digital assets or a new consumer protection mandate for disposable cards. | Lithic's integration with Visa's ALM over the VCPE API shows deep network integration [FF News], a prerequisite for navigating regulatory shifts. |
Compounding for Lithic looks like a classic platform flywheel, where each new client and transaction volume improves the core economics and attractiveness of the service. More clients generate more transaction data, which can be used to refine risk models and underwriting, potentially lowering costs. Higher volumes improve Lithic's negotiating position with bank partners and card networks, which could translate to better interchange rates or more flexible terms that can be passed on to clients. Evidence that this flywheel is already turning includes the claim that Lithic has helped customers generate over $20 million in annual interchange revenue [LinkedIn, Julian Ranz], suggesting its platform is directly driving material economics for its users, which reinforces retention and attracts new business.
To size the win, consider the trajectory of Marqeta, a direct public competitor. Marqeta reached a market capitalization of approximately $15 billion following its 2021 IPO [Crunchbase]. While Lithic's current scale is not directly comparable, the scenario where it becomes a primary embedded issuer for the next wave of fintech and software companies could support a valuation in the high single-digit billions, assuming it captures a meaningful portion of the market Marqeta addresses. This is a scenario-based outcome, not a forecast, but it frames the potential upside if the Fintech Factory scenario plays out.
Partially corroborated -- Core opportunity framing relies on cited product capabilities and a client count, but specific growth catalysts and the scale of the potential win are extrapolated from the competitive landscape and a single public comparable.
Sources
Open sources
[TechCrunch, May 2021] Privacy.com rebrands to Lithic, raises $43M for virtual payment cards | https://techcrunch.com/2021/05/20/privacy-com-rebrands-to-lithic-raises-43m-for-virtual-payment-cards/
[Privacy.com, September 2026] About Us | https://www.privacy.com/about
[LinkedIn, accessed 2026] Julian Ranz LinkedIn Profile | https://www.linkedin.com/in/julianranz/
[Trustpilot, accessed 2026] Privacy.com Reviews | https://www.trustpilot.com/review/privacy.com
[Contrary Research, accessed 2026] Lithic Company Profile | https://research.contrary.com/reports/lithic
[CB Insights, accessed 2026] Lithic Company Profile | https://www.cbinsights.com/company/lithic
[FF News, accessed 2026] Lithic Integrates with Visa's Card Program Enrollment API | https://ffnews.com/newsarticle/lithic-integrates-with-visas-card-program-enrollment-api/
[Lightspark, accessed 2026] Lightspark and Lithic Partner to Launch Stablecoin-Settled Visa Card Program | https://www.lightspark.com/post/lightspark-and-lithic-partner-to-launch-stablecoin-settled-visa-card-program
[TechCrunch, July 2020] Privacy.com launches card issuing API | https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/15/privacy-com-launches-card-issuing-api/
[Honest Brand Reviews, accessed 2026] Privacy.com Review | https://honestbrandreviews.com/reviews/privacy-com/
[Lithic Blog] Lithic Company Blog | https://www.lithic.com/blog
[Fintech Futures] Lithic raises $60M Series C led by Stripes | https://www.fintechfutures.com/2024/09/lithic-raises-60m-series-c-led-by-stripes/
[McKinsey, 2023] The 2023 McKinsey Global Payments Report | https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-insights/the-2023-mckinsey-global-payments-report
[Nilson Report, 2024] Commercial Card Purchase Volume in the U.S. | https://nilsonreport.com/publication_newsletter_archive_issue.php?issue=1262
[Stripe] Stripe Issuing | https://stripe.com/issuing
Articles about Lithic
- Lithic's Card Issuing API Has Crossed $1B in Annual Charge Volume — The former Privacy.com has pivoted its consumer traction into a B2B infrastructure play, backed by a $60M Series C from Stripes.