Interview with Ramp founder Eric Glyman (45 minutes; Feb 2022; primarily about stablecoins & crypto)

Ramp, with a $600M in VC backing and an $8 billion valuation (see note 1), is going head-to-head with Brex positioning itself as the go-to product for hot startups and other digital-native founders. But the bigger opportunity is taking share from AmEx and other large SMB-card providers such as Chase, Capital One, and Wells Fargo.

Ramp’s fee-free card is potentially more cost-effective than Brex, especially if you value the straight 1.5% cash-back on spending compared to the varying value of Brex points. Throw in robust and fee-free expense-management services and billpay features, and it’s a compelling value (priced at $600 annually at Brex). However, Ramp does not offer the deposit, money management or free wire services of Brex. And Ramp while Ramp has an iOS app, its Android app won’t debut until January 2023 (see note 3).

Ramp underwrites its cards with cash flow, ignoring credit scores of business owners. Spending limits are dynamic, constantly adjusted by the company’s monitoring of clients’ bank balances and cash flow. This is great for freshly-VC-backed startups with flush checking accounts or larger, more established businesses with steady revenues. It’s not for companies looking to bootstrap by revolving a card balance (Ramp requires payment in full each month).

Side note: Ramp is keeping a small portion (“single-digit percentage”) of its cash in USDC stablecoins that it lends out for income via Circle Yield (note 2).

Product

  • Corporate charge card

Features & Benefits

  • No fees
  • 1.5% cashback on spending
  • Up to 30 days to pay back charges (no revolving)
  • Expense receipts can be submitted via email or text message
  • Automated receipt matching
  • User-defined spending controls (category, merchant, transaction size)
  • Multi-step permissions & controls
  • Dedicated account manager
  • Billpay
  • Expense management with analytics to help cut costs
  • Unlimited virtual & physical cards for employees
  • Accounting software integrations (QuickBooks Online, NetSuite, Xero, Sage Intacct)
  • No personal credit check
  • No personal guarantee
  • Discounts on various third-party services (AWS, Notion, etc)

Integrations

  • Slack
  • QuickBooks
  • Xero
  • Sage
  • NetSuite
  • 1Password

Company vitals

Ramp (updated 17 March 2022)
FAB Score = 530 (#2 on our list of largest SMB corporate cards)
– HQ: NYC
– Founded: March 2019
– Raised $610M ($595M in past 12 months) (Crunchbase)
– Valuation: $8.0B (based on Feb 2022 round)
– Website visits (Jan 2022): 660,000 (SimilarWeb)
– Employees: 264 (Pitchbook)
– Citations: 14 (Crunchbase)
– Linkedin: 24,900 followers (298 employees)
– Twitter: 8,400 followers
– Capterra: 4.9 (37 reviews) (no reviews on TrustPilot)

 

Notes:
(1) At $8.1B, Ramp is the 15th most valuable private fintech in the United States. Brex, at $12B, is number eight. See our Fintech Unicorns list for more info.
(2) Founder Eric Glyman discusses Ramp’s stablecoin investments with Circle’s Jeremy Allaire in a Feb 2022 podcast (go to minute 4)
(3) Post updated 23 Nov 2022 to show that Ramp does have an iOS app, and an Android one is expected in Jan 2023.