The fintech industry has seen explosive growth in the last five years, with startups in the category raising over $350 million in VC funding from 2019 through 2023, according to data from CB Insights. Despite this growth, Eric Glyman, the co-founder and CEO of Ramp, believes that the industry, including his own company, is just beginning to tap into its potential.
Glyman recently shared on the TechCrunch Found podcast that despite Ramp’s significant growth as a unicorn corporate card and expense startup, they have only scratched the surface and have just 1% of their potential market share.
“As quickly as we’ve grown, in our largest market of cards, we still have 99% plus of the market to go,” Glyman said. “So some of this is actually just, we want to bring the magic to more companies [so that] expenses can be effortless accounting, you know, can be radically simpler.”
Despite the rapid growth of the fintech industry in recent years, Glyman began building his first fintech startup before it became a trending topic. He and his co-founder Karim Atiyeh launched Paribus in 2014, a startup that utilized AI technology to help users get price adjustments on recently purchased items. The startup was eventually acquired by Capital One after raising $2 million in funding.
Glyman discussed the evolution of fintech and AI technology, highlighting the advancements made in the field. While building Paribus, the AI technology was rudimentary, but for Ramp, the AI tech stack has become more sophisticated.
“It’s really profound, I would say, I think a decade ago, you would use it in hyper-targeted use cases to today, I don’t think there’s a part of Ramp that isn’t affected in some way, by AI, and I think it’s gonna keep accelerating,” Glyman said.
Glyman also shared Ramp’s strategy for scaling and expanding into new categories. The company aims to address existing gaps in its customers’ expense workflows while adapting to emerging needs. Despite the challenges ahead, Glyman is optimistic about the company’s future.
“If we do it right, we think and hope that work will feel purposeful, never tedious, monotonous, but strategic, insightful and actionable to focus on the high leverage and creative stuff,” Glyman said. “So that’s what we’re trying to work on. And it’s been a lot of fun getting there.”
Ramp, founded in 2019 and based in New York, has raised over $1.7 billion from venture capitalists and was valued at $5.8 billion in August 2023.
