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A $30 million Series C raise gives New York-based income and employment data provider Argyle the runway to achieve profitability by 2026 as an “enterprise-grade service provider,” says founder and CEO Shmulik Fishman.
The latest funding round included a mix of equity and debt and was led by Rockefeller Asset Management’s Fintech Innovation Fund, with Rockefeller Portfolio Manager Chris Randazzo taking a seat on Argyle’s board of directors. Returning investors included Bain Capital Ventures, SignalFire, and Checkr, and brought the total raised by Argyle since 2018 to more than $100 million, the company said Tuesday.
Shmulik Fishman
“As I see it, this funding round is the culmination of our metamorphosis from a product-driven tech company to a people-driven, enterprise-grade service provider,” Fishman said in a blog post outlining how the company plans to use the influx of cash.
Founded in 2018, Argyle claims to be the leading provider of direct-source, real-time income and employment data. Last year, Argyle hired Dropbox veteran Anaid Chacón as senior vice president of product and signed more than 90 new customers, bringing the company’s total customer count to more than 140 across the mortgage, personal lending and background screening verticals. Of those customers, 40 are larger enterprises.
Helping fuel growth in the mortgage vertical were integrations including ICE Mortgage Technology’s Encompass platform, Dark Matter’s Empower loan origination system, and nCino’s mortgage suite (formerly SimpleNexus). In October, Argyle announced integration with Fannie Mae’s Desktop Underwriter validation service.
Chris Randazzo
Rockefeller Fintech Innovation Fund has “been nothing short of impressed with Argyle’s disruption in automating income and employment verifications,” Randazzo said in a statement. “Through partnerships and integrations with influential institutions across sectors, they have become a powerful force in the market, which is exactly why we are thrilled to be leading this funding round and have confidence they will continue this trajectory in 2024 and beyond.”
Fishman said attracting the attention of institutional investors like Rockefeller Capital Management demonstrates Argyle has “the track record, ethos and brainpower to fulfill our vision of transforming income and employment verifications at the enterprise level. With this new capital at our disposal, we plan to reach another milestone — free cash flow. We expect to achieve profitability by 2026 and now have the runway we need to see us well past that point.”
While Argyle’s technology “remains as consequential as ever,” Fishman said “people and process” are now taking center stage, so the company is looking to “hire really smart people who are experts in their fields and who genuinely care about our mission.”
As of Tuesday, the company was advertising openings for two software engineers and one sales and marketing executive.
Argyle’s competitors include Truework, which has a strategic partnership with TransUnion, Truv, which is partnered with Experian, The Work Number from Equifax, and MeasureOne, which touts consumer-permissioned data.
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