The fintech that changed its direction due to Kanye West has now reached a valuation of $1.4 billion.

      Slash, the vertical banking platform founded by two college dropouts, has successfully raised a $100 million Series C investment with support from Khosla Ventures and Ribbit Capital. The company's valuation has almost quadrupled since its Series B funding in May 2025, marking a significant recovery for the firm after losing its primary market virtually overnight.

      Based in San Francisco, Slash has achieved a valuation of $1.4 billion following the $100 million Series C round, as reported by Bloomberg on Wednesday. This funding signifies a rapid upward shift in the company's growth; less than a year ago, Slash completed its Series B at a valuation of $370 million, and the current financing round puts its value at nearly four times that amount.

      Victor Cardenas, a Stanford dropout, and Kevin Bai, who left the University of Waterloo, established Slash with an unconventional origin in the recent fintech landscape. They started by providing banking services specifically for sneaker resellers, a niche that quickly gained traction. However, following a series of antisemitic remarks made by Kanye West in late 2022, Adidas severed ties with the rapper, resulting in the collapse of the Yeezy market that supported the sneaker reselling sector.

      Cardenas reported that Slash saw its revenue plummet by 80% almost instantly. The company had previously raised $19 million and built a team around a market that unexpectedly disappeared. Instead of shutting down, Cardenas and Bai recalibrated their approach, shifting to a broader vision of vertical banking for online enterprises. Rather than compete directly with platforms like Ramp, Mercury, and Brex that serve a wide array of industries, Slash focuses on developing specialized financial products tailored for specific sectors.

      The first sector targeted after this pivot was performance marketing firms that manage digital advertising campaigns for e-commerce businesses. A major challenge for these firms was the need to create separate accounts within their banking system for each client to monitor prepayments and spending distinctly. To address this, Slash developed a solution. By the time of the Series B announcement in May 2025, Cardenas mentioned to Fortune that over 1% of all Facebook ads were purchased with a Slash-issued card.

      The pivot proved effective, and Slash now caters to various verticals, including web3, e-commerce, agencies, contractors, affiliate marketers, healthcare suppliers, online travel agencies, and wholesalers. They also offer a stablecoin payments product, treasury tools, and working capital solutions.

      Since its early days providing virtual debit cards for teenagers, the company has significantly expanded its product range. Current offerings include corporate cards, business banking, stablecoin payments, treasury management, working capital, global USD accounts, invoicing, and a comprehensive platform that supports multiple entities, accounting integration, expense management, global payments, an API, analytics, and AI agents.

      The platform is built on Column, a chartered bank co-founded by a Plaid executive aimed at serving tech-savvy fintech companies. Cardenas has acknowledged that this partnership has helped Slash manage the challenges faced by the fintech middleware sector, especially following the collapse of Synapse, a prominent banking-as-a-service intermediary.

      Khosla Ventures has a history of successful early investments in fintech, being an early backer of Stripe, Affirm, and Ramp. Meanwhile, Ribbit Capital focuses exclusively on financial services, having supported companies like Robinhood, Coinbase, and Credit Karma. Their joint participation in this funding round signifies confidence that Slash’s vertical strategy, excelling in niche markets rather than competing in a broader landscape, presents structural advantages for substantial growth.

      During the Series B announcement, Cardenas outlined his long-term vision: “If we continue to address these specific financial workflows for various sectors, we could discreetly emerge as one of the largest commercial credit card issuers in the country.”