Oban MacTavish and Cooper Hart co-founded Spade in 2021 to develop a transaction enrichment API that utilises data to provide real-time details on merchants, categories, and geolocations. By “cleaning” the data and enriching it with a proprietary first-party dataset, Spade can match transactions with actual merchant identities, logos, business hours, and spending history. This enhanced data provides a complete picture of purchases for Spade’s customers, including card issuers, anti-fraud platforms, and neo-banks, enabling them to implement spending controls and improve their fraud prevention models.
In February 2023, Spade secured $5 million in its seed funding round, led by Andreessen Horowitz. Y Combinator, Gradient Ventures, Dash Fund, and a group of angel investors from Square, Alloy, Coinbase, MANTL, and Venmo also participated in the round, bringing the total funding to $6.1 million. Spade plans to utilise a significant portion of the raised funds for hiring as they plan to expand their team. Initially, the startup consisted of just Oban MacTavish and Cooper Hart, but now they have a team of 10 individuals. The company can now also negotiate data acquisition deals with more runway available.
It started basically as doing a logo for transactions. It very quickly snowballed, so we discussed building a simple integration of layers on top of bank data that makes it better.
Oban MacTavish, Co-Founder and CEO at Spade for TechCrunch
Following the successful funding round, Spade has upgraded its web domain to the premium exact brand match Spade.com. Previously, the company had been operating on the Spade.dev URL.
Launched by Google in 2018, the .dev domain extension was intended to cater specifically to developers and showcase their technical expertise. However, this narrow focus may limit a company’s reach and recognition. Since the .dev domain is relatively new, it may not be as widely recognised or trusted by consumers as more established domain extensions. This could make it challenging for businesses to attract traffic and build a broad customer base.
For Spade, which aims to establish itself as a leader in the Fintech industry, upgrading to a more widely recognised domain extension like .com is a strategic move to expand its reach and appeal to a broader audience. Our research shows that 71% of the top Fintech companies prefer exact brand-match domain names, which carry trust and credibility – two crucial factors in the financial sector.
Many companies consider the .com domain the gold standard for online presence. Upgrading to a .com domain is often seen as a signal of a company’s growth and success, as it can improve brand recognition and help establish a more significant online presence.
When it comes to premium domain names, it’s important to weigh the potential loss in terms of brand recognition and revenue against the cost of the investment. In the long run, a premium domain name can be a valuable asset for your business. Contact us to learn more about our premium domain options and how they can help your business succeed.
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