William Hockey Explained

William Hockey
Birth Date:September 21, 1989
Birth Place:San Luis Obispo, California
Education:The Thacher School
Alma Mater:Emory University
Known For:Plaid

William Hockey (born 1989) is an American engineer and entrepreneur. He is best known for having started Column N.A.[1] and co-founding and running financial services company Plaid.[2]

Biography

Hockey was born in San Luis Obispo, California. He attended Emory University where he majored in computer science and economics. He spent a summer interning at Bain & Co. where he met his future co-founder Zachary Perret.[3]

When he was 21, Hockey founded Plaid with Perret in New York City, initially focusing on consumer financial services. They moved into financial market infrastructure after being frustrated with the difficulty of building in financial services. After a year they moved to San Francisco after raising seed money from Spark Capital, NEA and Google Ventures.[4] Plaid subsequently raised over $300 million additional investors including Goldman Sachs, Mary Meeker at KPCB,[5] American Express, Visa and Mastercard.[6]

Early in 2020, Visa agreed to buy Plaid for $5.3 billion, making Hockey the youngest individual to potentially sell a company for more than $5 billion.[7] [8]  The Department of Justice sued to block the deal [9]  and, in 2021, the companies mutually decided to end the merger. [10] A few months later, Plaid raised a $425 million Series D funding round, boosting its valuation to $13.4 billion. [11]  While Hockey has stepped down in his day-to-day role at Plaid, he remains on the board of directors. [12]

In April 2022, Hockey started Column N.A., the first nationally chartered bank built to enable developers and builders to create new financial products. [13]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Column N.A.. Forbes. en. 2023-04-15.
  2. Web site: Plaid: Fintech's Happy Plumbers. Forbes. en. 2020-01-27.
  3. Web site: Goizueta Beyond. en-US. 2020-01-27.
  4. Web site: Meet the start-up you've never heard of that powers Venmo, Robinhood and other big consumer apps. Rooney. Kate. 2018-10-04. CNBC. en. 2020-01-27.
  5. Web site: Mary Meeker Leads Funding Said to Value Plaid at $2.7 Billion. Chapman. Lizette. December 11, 2018. Bloomberg.
  6. Web site: Visa and Mastercard Sign Up for Investments in Fintech Unicorn Plaid. Fortune. en. 2020-01-27.
  7. Web site: Plaid's Founders Are Latest Fintech Royalty With Visa Deal. Verhage. Julie. January 14, 2020. Bloomberg.
  8. Web site: Meet The Four Under 30s Behind Visa's $5.3 Billion Acquisition Of Plaid. Kauflin. Jeff. Forbes. en. 2020-01-27.
  9. Web site: DOJ seeks to block Visa's $5.3 billion acquisition of start-up Plaid over antitrust concerns. Roony. Kate. November 5, 2020. CNBC.
  10. Web site: Visa, Fintech Startup Plaid Drop Merger Plans After DOJ Antitrust Lawsuit. Sandler. Rachel. January 13, 2021. Forbes.
  11. Web site: Plaid's $13.4 Billion Valuation Makes Its Founders Fintech's Newest Billionaires. Kauflin. Jeff. April 7, 2021. Forbes.
  12. Web site: Fresh off a $2.65B valuation, Plaid co-founder William Hockey is leaving. Clark. Kate. June 18, 2019. TechCrunch.
  13. Web site: Plaid Co-Founder Takes Aim at Rickety Banking Tech. Rudegeair. Peter. April 21, 2022. Wall Street Journal.