Rainforest, a startup that embeds payment processing into other software platforms, has raised $29 million in a Series B funding round, the company told Crunchbase News exclusively.
Matrix Partners and Infinity Ventures co-led the financing for the Atlanta-based company, which also included participation from Accel and Tech Square Ventures. All are repeat backers. In total, Rainforest has raised $57.5 million since its 2022 inception.
Rainforest, which is a self-described challenger to fintech giant Stripe, bills itself as a “payments-as-a-service” provider. Put simply, it aims to help vertical software companies enable payment processing for their merchants.
CEO and founder Joshua Silver believes that Rainforest stands out from competitors such as Stripe and Adyen in that it was “purpose-built” for vertical software platforms. Those companies, he claims, initially built their platforms for merchants “and then retrofitted for software platforms.”
“Payment providers who divide their attention between platforms and merchants can never truly prioritize platform-specific needs like residual reporting and merchant management,” Silver told Crunchbase News. “In contrast, our entire roadmap is capabilities that help software companies monetize embedded payments.”
Rainforest raised its Series A — a $20 million round — in June 2024. Since then, the company has seen its annual recurring revenue increase by 10x, according to Silver, who declined to reveal hard revenue figures.
“In around two years, we’ve grown from hundreds of millions of dollars of committed volume to processing billions of live volume,” Silver told Crunchbase News.
That sort of growth is what led investors to double down on their investments in Rainforest.
“The numbers speak volumes,” said Matrix partner Matt Brown via email. “… Rainforest has managed to become a differentiated, trusted partner for billion-dollar platforms with a lean team and in record time.”
He added: “While everyone’s chasing AI, I believe we’re witnessing the quiet emergence of a generational fintech company.”
Rainforest declined to reveal at what valuation it raised its Series B, with Silver noting only that it was “several times higher” than its last round.
Finding the market
Silver previously founded Patientco, a healthcare SaaS that he sold to Waystar (which went public in 2024). Prior to starting Rainforest, Silver said he consulted with more than 50 SaaS companies, and came to the conclusion that many of them were not happy with their existing embedded payments providers. So he set out to build an alternative.
Today, Rainforest has nearly 100 clients that have thousands of merchants across their platforms. They include Hint Health, Keap, PayGround, RoadSync, QuoteMachine, D-Tools, Duesy and Materio.
Healthcare, nonprofits and home services are the fastest-growing segments of Rainforest’s business, followed by education, local government and professional services.
Like many other startups, the company has implemented some AI tools, but it’s not where people might expect, according to Silver.
“While the tech industry is excited about AI, that same technology is also helping fraudsters evolve faster and evade traditional rule-based fraud detection tools,” he said. As such, Rainforest has upgraded its risk management systems to include AI tools that are designed to work with its platform-specific risk models “to stay ahead of fraudsters.”
Another way Rainforest differs from some competitors is that its revenue model is entirely consumption-based, just like cloud services. So rather than charging monthly platform or merchant fees, the company says it takes a “small” percentage cut of each transaction processed through its platform.
What’s next
Looking ahead, Rainforest plans to use its new capital to do more hiring (it currently has more than 40 employees), expand to Canada and continue its product development such as tap-to-phone, which allows merchants to use mobile phones as a terminal, rather than proprietary terminals. The company also plans to add alternate payment methods and fintech orchestration.
Jeremy Jonker, managing partner at Infinity Ventures, described Rainforest’s level of execution as “unparalleled.”
“One of the biggest challenges vertical SaaS companies face is the ability to migrate payment volume to a new provider and some companies struggle for years,” he said in a written statement. “This is exactly where Rainforest shines, helping their platform clients move hundreds of millions of dollars in just a few weeks or months.”
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Illustration: Dom Guzman
Photo by Chloe Jackman
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