It all started from the question, what if a credit card helped you spend less, not spend more?
Fast forward to today, and that question has just become one of the fastest-growing fintech companies in history. Ramp.
Here’s how they did it…
The Beginning (2019)
It all started with a simple idea, credit cards shouldn’t encourage spending — they should encourage saving.
So in early 2019, Eric Glyman and Karim Atiyeh, fresh off the sale of their first company, Paribus, teamed up with longtime collaborator Gene Lee and built the first version of Ramp. A credit card that automates savings, minimizes waste, and simplifies every step of expense management.
Early Days (2019)
Their scribble in 2019 went onto become a product that launched publicly in February 2020, and the timing couldn’t have been better. During a global pandemic people didn’t want their credit cards to give them flashy perks like an airport lounge. They wanted it to save them money. By the end of its first year, Ramp had thousands of customers and was processing over $100M per month in card volume.
Momentum Builds (2020-2023)
Word spread fast and by 2023, Ramp had crossed 13,000 customers. It was used by startups and public companies alike, branding itself not as a fintech, but as a “workflow company”.
The Surge (2024–2025)
In 2024 things started to really accelerate. Ramp doubled their revenue and customers in a single year. Annualized revenue crossed $1B. Purchase volume surged past $100B, and the customer base exceeded 50,000 businesses. Investors took notice, and in November 2025, Ramp raised $300M in a round led by Lightspeed. This valued the company at $32B, according to data from CB Insights. This was just months after hitting $22.5B earlier that summer. Ramp became one of the highest-valued private fintech companies in the world.
Their $32B Moment (2025)
That funding round didn’t just write Ramp into the history books, it validated the idea the founders scribbled down years earlier.
But It’s Still Business as Usual
Despite its success, Ramp still operates with a working-class attitude. They remain focused, frugal, and allergic to unnecessary complexity. No fluff in the product. Just automation, control, and clarity. What started as a scribble on a piece of paper is now one of the defining companies of its generation.
