The fintech company that shifted its focus due to Kanye West has now reached a valuation of $1.4 billion.

      Slash, a vertical banking platform founded by two college dropouts, has successfully secured $100 million in a Series C funding round, backed by Khosla Ventures and Ribbit Capital. The company’s valuation has nearly quadrupled since its Series B in May 2025, marking a significant comeback after its primary market disappeared overnight.

      The San Francisco-based platform's latest funding round has reached a valuation of $1.4 billion, as reported by Bloomberg on Wednesday. This represents a remarkable growth trajectory for Slash, which was valued at $370 million during its Series B round less than a year ago.

      Victor Cardenas, a Stanford dropout, and Kevin Bai, who left the University of Waterloo, established Slash, which has an unusual origin story in the fintech sector. Initially, they focused on providing banking services to sneaker resellers, a niche that gained rapid popularity.

      However, following a series of antisemitic public statements made by Kanye West in late 2022, Adidas ended its partnership with him, causing the collapse of the Yeezy market, which had been crucial for sneaker reselling businesses. Cardenas noted that Slash’s revenue plummeted by 80% almost instantly. Despite this, they had raised $19 million and assembled a team based on a market that suddenly vanished.

      Instead of giving up, Cardenas and Bai shifted their focus to vertical banking for online businesses. Rather than competing broadly against Ramp, Mercury, and Brex—platforms serving various industries—Slash began developing tailored financial products for specific sectors.

      The first sector they targeted post-pivot was performance marketing firms that manage digital advertising for e-commerce businesses. These companies faced a significant challenge in needing separate banking accounts for each client to manage prepayments and expenditures. To address this issue, Slash created a solution. By the time of its Series B announcement in May 2025, Cardenas indicated that more than 1% of Facebook ads were purchased using a card issued by Slash.

      The pivot proved successful, and Slash now caters to various verticals, including web3, e-commerce, agencies, contractors, affiliate marketers, healthcare suppliers, online travel agencies, and wholesalers, in addition to offering stablecoin payments and treasury and working capital tools.

      The company’s product offerings have significantly evolved from its initial virtual debit cards for teenagers. Current products include corporate cards, business banking services, stablecoin payments, treasury management, working capital solutions, global USD accounts, invoicing, and a platform layer that features multi-entity support, accounting integration, expense management, global payments, an API, analytics, and AI agents.

      The platform operates on Column, a chartered bank co-founded by a Plaid executive, specifically designed to assist tech-forward fintech companies. Cardenas has credited this relationship with helping Slash navigate the challenges faced in the fintech middleware sector when Synapse, a major banking-as-a-service provider, collapsed.

      Khosla Ventures has a proven history of early investments in successful fintech companies, having previously invested in Stripe, Affirm, and Ramp. Ribbit Capital specializes in financial services, backing firms like Robinhood, Coinbase, and Credit Karma. Their collective participation in this round demonstrates their belief that Slash’s vertical model, which focuses on successfully addressing specific niches rather than competing across a broad market, has the potential to lead to substantial growth.

      In the announcement of its Series B funding, Cardenas expressed a long-term vision: “By continuing to address these niche vertical financial workflows for businesses across various industries, we can gradually position ourselves to become one of the largest commercial credit card issuers in the country.”