Fancards
“Can a collegiate-licensed prepaid card company become the end-to-end payments and disbursements infrastructure for the entire sports industry — from fan spending to athlete per diems?”
Founded2015
HQBirmingham, Alabama, United States
FoundersLynn Boggs, Greg Boggs
Total raised$8.0M
Latest roundunknown
IndustryFintech / SMB banking
The story
Founded in 2015 as a provider of collegiate-licensed Mastercard gift cards filling a gap in sports merchandise retail, Fancards expanded into reloadable prepaid debit accounts to capture ongoing fan spend. The company then pivoted its B2B focus with the launch of Benjamin by Fancards — a SaaS-based per diem and expense management platform — targeting professional sports organizations and NIL collectives, effectively repositioning from a gift card company to a sports-vertical embedded payments and disbursements platform.
Last 12 months
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Product timeline
2015
Lynn and Greg Boggs founded University Fancards in Birmingham, Alabama, identifying a gap in the market for collegiate-branded gift cards; first university partner was the University of Alabama.· card
2018
Expanded to partnerships with over 30 university athletics programs and college football bowl games, offering licensed Mastercard gift cards in 20,000+ retail locations including Walmart, Kroger, Dollar General, and H-E-B.· card
2019
Launched Fancard Prepaid Mastercard reloadable debit card, enabling fans to use the card for everyday spending with direct deposit and mobile banking features.· banking
2022
Launched Fancards Payment Solutions and the Benjamin by Fancards SaaS platform for per diem and expense management targeting professional and collegiate sports organizations.· pivot
2023
Expanded into NIL collectives and MLB organization per diem management, powering custom debit card disbursements for player and staff expenses across minor league affiliates.· banking
The stack
3 layers disclosed in Fancards’s embedded-finance stack
Banking / BaaS
Sunrise Banks
Card network
in the full report
Sponsor bank
in the full report
Accounting gap: significant
2 more providers across 2 layers, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.