Zach Perret
Zach Perret is a fintech entrepreneur who co-founded the financial data network company PlaidPlaidPlaid is a financial technology company co-founded by Zach Perret and William Hockey and headquartered in San Francisco. It provides infrastructure connecting financial accounts with applications, with products spanning account verification, payments, lending and fraud prevention, and develops AI models for financial transactions. A planned acquisition by Visa was terminated in 2021.Open the full entry with William Hockey in 2013 and serves as its chief executive; VisaVisaVisa Inc. is one of the world’s leaders in digital payments, with roots going back to 1958, and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.Open the full entry agreed to acquire Plaid for $5.3 billion in 2020, but the deal was terminated in January 2021 after the US Department of Justice sued to block it.
Contents9 sections
Key facts
Early Life: North Carolina, Duke and Bain
Perret grew up in a small-town setting in North Carolina and majored in the hard sciences at Duke. He later worked briefly as an associate in the Atlanta office of the consulting firm Bain & Company, where he met William Hockey; both left consulting for the startup world.[1]
2013Co-founding Plaid
In 2013 Perret and Hockey founded Plaid. They first built consumer finance apps, then found that the underlying API technology was more valuable, and moved the company’s base to San Francisco in 2013.[1]
2020–2021The Visa Acquisition and Its Termination
In early 2020 Visa announced a plan to acquire Plaid for $5.3 billion. On November 5, 2020, the US Department of Justice sued to block the deal, and on January 12, 2021, Visa and Plaid announced the termination of the merger agreement.[2][1]
Perret later said that had Plaid known about the antitrust scrutiny, it “wouldn't have entered into the deal,” adding that the company had changed significantly during the pandemic; he also said, “We've hit an inflection point in digital finance.”[1]
April 2021Plaid’s $425 Million Funding Round
In April 2021 Plaid raised $425 million from Altimeter Capital, Silver Lake and Ribbit CapitalRibbit CapitalRibbit Capital is a venture-capital firm founded in 2012 by Meyer “Micky” Malka and headquartered in Palo Alto, California. It began with financial-technology investing and has expanded into AI, commerce and related infrastructure. Its investments include Coinbase, Robinhood and Nubank.Open the full entry at a post-money valuation of $13.4 billion; Perret, then 33, was Plaid’s chief executive.[2]
December 5, 2023Appearance on an a16z Program
On December 5, 2023, a16zAndreessen HorowitzAndreessen Horowitz (a16z) is a venture capital firm founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. It invests from the seed stage through the growth stage and provides operational support to its portfolio companies.Open the full entry published the video “Creating a Supportive Builder Community with Plaid's Zach Perret” on its YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry channel, featuring Perret as head of Plaid.[3]
June 20, 2024Conversation on an a16z Program
On June 20, 2024, a16z published the video “Zach Perret (Plaid) & Simon KhalafSimon KhalafSimon Khalaf is an American technology executive who was chief executive officer of the card issuing platform company Marqeta from January 2023 to February 2025 and was previously chief executive of the mobile app analytics company Flurry.Open the full entry (Marqeta): New Applications in Fintech” on its YouTube channel, in which Perret and Simon Khalaf of Marqeta discussed new applications in fintech.[4]
December 19, 2025Appearance on an a16z Program
On December 19, 2025, a16z published “How AI Will Transform Fintech In 2026,” a video featuring Perret, on its YouTube channel, on how artificial intelligence would transform fintech in 2026.[5]
Related Organizations, Websites, and Public Accounts
Plaid: Official website: https://plaid.com/ (opens in a new window).[6]
Sources
- Plaid, Visa, and the best fintech deal that never happened (opens in a new window)
- Plaid’s $13.4 Billion Valuation Makes Its Founders Fintech’s Newest Billionaires (opens in a new window)
- Creating a Supportive Builder Community with Plaid's Zach Perret (opens in a new window)
- Zach Perret (Plaid) & Simon Khalaf (Marqeta): New Applications in Fintech (opens in a new window)
- How AI Will Transform Fintech In 2026 (opens in a new window)
- About us - our mission | Plaid (opens in a new window)