Lead Bank
Also a provider — view Lead Bank’s profile →“Can a chartered community bank replace the middleware BaaS layer and become the default sponsor bank for top-tier fintech and stablecoin programs?”
Founded1928
HQKansas City, MO
Latest roundSeries B, September 2025
Valuation$1.47B post-money (2025)
IndustryBank / Sponsor
The story
Lead Bank is a century-old Kansas City community bank that was acquired in 2022 by a Jackie Reses-led investor group for $56M and repositioned as an API-driven sponsor bank for fintech and digital-asset programs. The strategy is vertical: Lead owns the charter, the ledger, and the direct Fed connection, eliminating the middleware BaaS layer that failed elsewhere (Synapse, Solid). By 2025 it was powering programs for Affirm, Ramp, and Stripe/Visa's stablecoin cards, and closed a $70M Series B at a $1.47B valuation.
Product timeline
2022
Jackie Reses-led group acquires Lead Bank for $56M, pivoting the community bank into a BaaS platform for fintechs.· acquisition
2025
Partnered with Stripe and Visa to power stablecoin-linked cards via Stripe's Bridge orchestration.· banking
2025
Closed $70M Series B at $1.47B valuation.· funding
Regulated entities
1
regulatory licence held by Lead Bank
Licence types, jurisdictions and registered entities are in the Embedded Finance Index report.
The stack
10 layers disclosed in Lead Bank’s embedded-finance stack
Payments / PSP
Money movement
in the full report
Banking / BaaS
in the full report
Card issuing
in the full report
Card network
in the full report
Ledger
in the full report
Lending
in the full report
Sponsor bank
in the full report
FX & payouts
in the full report
Crypto
in the full report
Accounting gap: none
13 more providers across 9 layers, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.