SHERIDAN, WYOMING – Feb. 21, 2025 – Mercury, a financial technology company, has released its annual letter reflecting on a year of significant growth and innovation in 2024. CEO and co-founder Immad Akhund shared insights into the company's progress towards its vision of a more comprehensive and integrated banking experience for businesses and individuals.
Expanding the Definition of Banking
Akhund began by challenging the traditional perception of what a bank does. "If you ask most people what a bank does, they’ll probably say it holds money, and maybe offers some ways to deposit or withdraw that money. If you ask them what it should do, they might not even know where to begin," he stated. Mercury's vision, since its inception in 2017, has been to provide not just secure money holding, but also the essential tools and data for effective financial management. This includes comprehensive spending, sending, receiving, and financial analysis capabilities.
The "Year of Product Launches"
2024 was dubbed the "year of product launches" at Mercury, with the introduction of four major business products: bill pay, invoicing, accounting automations, and employee expense management. The company also expanded into the consumer market with Mercury Personal, all while reinforcing its core banking infrastructure. "Your bank account is essential to how your business operates, and it’s one of the first things you need after starting your business. But because legacy banks largely haven’t innovated in software, it’s created the fragmentation we’re seeing in banking and fintech," Akhund explained, highlighting the complexities faced by founders and finance teams.
From Core Banking to Integrated Financial Workflows
Mercury's initial focus was on establishing a robust and secure bank account platform. "From our founding in 2017 through 2021, we were laser focused on building the best account for securely holding your money," Akhund noted. By 2024, with over 200,000 business customers, $95 billion in transaction volume, and an 80+ Net Promoter Score (NPS), Mercury was well-positioned to broaden its offerings. "Our profitability gave us the resources to make an investment in product expansion without taking away from our core product," he confirmed.
Customer-Driven Innovation
Akhund emphasized the importance of understanding customer needs. Mercury utilizes two key signals: observing how customers use the existing product and analyzing direct customer feedback. The Invoicing product, for example, arose from observing customers using the Request Payment feature in a workaround fashion. “I had been using the Request Payments feature as a simple way for us to collect payments but it was a bit of a workaround from sending a traditional invoice. When Mercury launched Invoicing, it really solved all my painpoints and is much more efficient. I love that I can create branded invoices, schedule them, and track the status of each payment from my Mercury dashboard. I never expected my bank account to do that, but now that it can, it makes perfect sense that it should,” shared Aizada Marat, CEO and co-founder of Alma, a legal tech company. Similarly, the launch of Mercury Personal was driven by consistent customer requests for a personal banking option tailored to entrepreneurs and investors.
Internal Startups and Agile Development
Mercury adopted an innovative approach to product development by treating each new product team as a "funded seed-stage startup" within the company. These small, independent teams, typically consisting of eight members or fewer, are empowered to make decisions while remaining aligned with Mercury's overall vision. "Our Invoicing product, for example, started with just three people. The v1 of our Reimbursements product was built by one of my co-founders, Max Tagher, our CTO, as a hackweek project before it was transitioned to a small team to run with it," Akhund explained. Performance is rigorously tracked against usage benchmarks and revenue targets, allowing for strategic scaling and resource allocation. Aggressive timelines and company-wide visibility further ensure momentum and prevent scope creep.
Maintaining Core Product Excellence
Akhund acknowledged the potential risk of neglecting the core product during expansion. "I’m sure we’ve all felt it when a company starts expanding what they’re building, and the product you initially fell in love with degrades because it’s no longer getting the attention it deserves and needs. That is not an outcome we were willing to entertain at Mercury," he emphasized. Mercury continued to enhance its core platform, adding features such as support for more foreign currencies, ACH authentication, Smart Search, and doubling the size of its compliance team.
The Future of Banking
Mercury's vision is to create a platform that seamlessly integrates banking and financial software, enabling businesses to manage their finances in one centralized location. Akhund believes that in the future, using separate financial software outside of one's bank account will seem as antiquated as using a floppy disk. “Mercury’s product is modern, intuitive, and has completely changed my expectations of what a bank account should do. As a scaling company, we need a banking partner that moves at the same speed we do and shares the same appreciation for building great products. The vision and craft they put into everything they do is so far beyond what traditional banks can provide,” said Paul Copplestone, co-founder and CEO of Supabase, an open-source developer platform. Mercury's commitment to innovation and customer-centricity positions it to continue shaping the future of banking.
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