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Zach Perret, CEO and co-founder of Plaid, speaks during the Silicon Slopes Tech Summit in Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S., on Jan. 31, 2020.

George Frey | Bloomberg via Getty Images

Plaid on Thursday announced a new funding round that values the fintech startup at $6 billion, down from $13.4 billion in 2021. The new funding will give some employees a way to cash out.

The $575 million round was led by a batch of new investors including Franklin Templeton, Fidelity and BlackRock. Existing backers NEA and Ribbit Capital also participated, Plaid said.

Plaid CEO Zach Perret said the startup saw a “substantial” growth year with record revenue and positive operating margins, though he did not provide specifics. The downsized valuation is a reflection of market conditions, he said.

“The reality is our business is much stronger and revenue has grown quite substantially,” Perret told CNBC. “The profitability of business has gotten quite a lot better, and yet we are impacted by market multiples, as many companies are.”

Plaid is “not ready” for an IPO quite yet, but this round will be the last private fundraise until the company lists on public markets, he said.

“An IPO is absolutely on our path for the coming years. We haven’t assigned a specific timeline to it,” Perret said. “We still have a lot of internal work to do. We’re not ready, which is why we didn’t consider it right now.”

Rise of secondary rounds

Plaid’s new funding allows employees to cash out of restricted stock units that expire at the end of the year. The startup will also use a portion of the proceeds to enable an employee tender offer.

“That’s the motivation for the round,” Perret said. “We think it’s important to give our employees options to sell and the ability to have liquidity, especially given that Plaid has been private for so long.”

Plaid is the latest in a string of late-stage, private deals designed to enable employees to cash out in private markets. Ramp, DataBricks, OpenAI and Stripe have all announced secondary financings that were designed to let some employees get liquidity. Few of those companies seem eager to wade into public markets. Recent volatility around stocks and lackluster performance of recent IPOs, including CoreWeave’s last week, has kept some companies on the sidelines.

“Volatility is definitely going to be one of the key factors,” Perret said, adding that it was too early to assess IPO market conditions for Plaid.

The startup has been on a roller coaster in private markets since it was founded a decade ago. Plaid was set to be bought by Visa for $5 billion in 2020 in a deal that was eventually called off amid regulatory scrutiny. The following year, it raised money at a $13.4 billion valuation. That also marked the peak for growth and technology valuations before the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates.

Plaid provides the plumbing to connect consumer bank accounts to popular finance apps. Its APIs let consumers link their bank accounts to services like Venmo, Robinhood and Coinbase. Since then, it’s expanded into direct bill pay, cyber security and data analytics. It also partners with major banks.

Cybersecurity is one of Plaid’s largest growth areas, Perret said. He pointed to financial fraud growing at 20% to 25% per year as a result of the boom in artificial intelligence.

“We’ve been leaning in to try to build tools to combat deep fakes and a lot of AI-driven financial fraud,” he said. “Unfortunately, this is a large market opportunity. It’s something that we’d actually like to be smaller. But it’s been an area of growth.”

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As nations build ‘sovereign AI,’ open-source models and cloud computing can help, experts say

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As nations build 'sovereign AI,' open-source models and cloud computing can help, experts say

Digital illustration of a glowing world map with “AI” text across multiple continents, representing the global presence and integration of artificial intelligence.

Fotograzia | Moment | Getty Images

As artificial intelligence becomes more democratized, it is important for emerging economies to build their own “sovereign AI,” panelists told CNBC’s East Tech West conference in Bangkok, Thailand, on Friday.

In general, sovereign AI refers to a nation’s ability to control its own AI technologies, data and related infrastructure, ensuring strategic autonomy while meeting its unique priorities and security needs.

However, this sovereignty has been lacking, according to panelist Kasima Tharnpipitchai, head of AI strategy at SCB 10X, the technology investment arm of Thailand-based SCBX Group. He noted that many of the world’s most prominent large language models, operated by companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI, are based on the English language.

“The way you think, the way you interact with the world, the way you are when you speak another language can be very different,” Tharnpipitchai said. 

It is, therefore, important for countries to take ownership of their AI systems, developing technology for specific languages, cultures, and countries, rather than just translating over English-based models. 

Sovereign AI rises as governments become power brokers

Panelists agreed that the digitally savvy ASEAN region, with a total population of nearly 700 million people, is particularly well positioned to build its sovereign AI. People under the age of 35 make up around 61% of the population, and about 125,000 new users gain access to the internet daily.

Given this context, Jeff Johnson, managing director of ASEAN at Amazon Web Services, said, “I  think it’s really important, and we’re really focused on how we can really democratize access to cloud and AI.”

Open-source models 

According to panelists, one key way that countries can build up their sovereign AI environments is through the use of open-source AI models. 

“There is plenty of amazing talent here in Southeast Asia and in Thailand, especially. To have that captured in a way that isn’t publicly accessible or ecosystem developing would feel like a shame,” said SCB 10X’s Tharnpipitchai. 

Doing open-source is a way to create a “collective energy” to help Thailand better compete in AI and push sovereignty in a way that is beneficial for the entire country, he added. 

Access to computing 

Open-source AI will have a massive impact on the world, says Hugging Face CEO

“We’re here in Thailand and across Southeast Asia to support all industries, all businesses of all shapes and sizes, from the smallest startup to the largest enterprise,” said AWS’s Johnson. 

He added that the economic model of the company’s cloud services makes it easy to “pay for what you use,” thus lowering the barriers to entry and making it very easy to build models and applications. 

In April, the U.N. Trade and Development Agency said in a report that AI was projected to reach $4.8 trillion in market value by 2033. However, it warned that the technology’s benefits remain highly concentrated, with nations at risk of lagging behind. 

Among UNCTAD’s recommendations to the international community for driving inclusive growth was shared AI infrastructure, the use of open-source AI models and initiatives to share AI knowledge and resources.

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Amazon CEO Jassy says AI will lead to ‘fewer people doing some of the jobs’ that get automated

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Amazon CEO Jassy says AI will lead to 'fewer people doing some of the jobs' that get automated

AI will change the workforce, says Amazon CEO Andy Jassy

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the rapid rollout of generative artificial intelligence means the company will one day require fewer employees to do some of the work that computers can handle.

“Like with every technical transformation, there will be fewer people doing some of the jobs that the technology actually starts to automate,” Jassy told CNBC’s Jim Cramer in an interview on Monday. “But there’s going to be other jobs.”

Even as AI eliminates the need for some roles, Amazon will continue to hire more employees in AI, robotics and elsewhere, Jassy said.

Earlier this month, Jassy admitted that he expects the company’s workforce to decline in the next few years as Amazon embraces generative AI and AI-powered software agents. He told staffers in a memo that it will be “hard to know exactly where this nets out over time” but that the corporate workforce will shrink as Amazon wrings more efficiencies out of the technology.

It’s a message that’s making its way across the tech sector. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff last week claimed AI is doing 30% to 50% of the work at his software vendor. Other companies such as Shopify and Microsoft have urged employees to adopt the technology in their daily work. The CEO of Klarna said in May that the online lender has managed to shrink its headcount by about 40%, in part due to investments in AI and natural attrition in its workforce.

Jassy said on Monday that AI will free employees from “rote work” and “make all our jobs more interesting,” while enabling staffers to invent better services more quickly than before.

Amazon and other tech companies have also been shrinking their workforces through rolling layoffs over the past several years. Amazon has cut more than 27,000 jobs since the start of 2022, and it’s announced smaller, more targeted layoffs in its retail and devices units in recent months.

Amazon shares are flat so far this year, underperforming the Nasdaq, which has gained 5.5%. The stock is about 10% below its record reached in February, while fellow megacaps Meta, Microsoft and Nvidia are all trading at or very near record highs.

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Stablecoin issuer Circle applies for a national bank charter

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Stablecoin issuer Circle applies for a national bank charter

Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), on the day of Circle Internet Group’s IPO, in New York City, U.S., June 5, 2025.

Brendan McDermid | Reuters

Stablecoin issuer Circle Internet Group has applied for a national trust bank charter, moving forward on its mission to bring stablecoins into the traditional financial world after the firm’s big market debut this month, CNBC confirmed.

Shares rose 1% after hours.

If the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency grants the bank charter, Circle will establish the First National Digital Currency Bank, N.A. Under the charter, Circle, which issues the USDC stablecoin, will also be able to offer custody services in the future to institutional clients for assets, which could include representations of stocks and bonds on a blockchain network.

Reuters first reported on Circle’s bank charter application.

There are no plans to change the management of Circle’s USDC reserves, which are currently held with other major banks.

Anchorage Digital is the only other crypto company to obtain such a license.

Circle’s move comes after a wildly successful IPO and debut trading month on the public markets. Shares of the company are up 484% in June. The company is also benefiting from a wave of optimism after the Senate’s passage of the GENIUS Act, which would give the U.S. a regulatory framework for stablecoins.

Having a federally regulated trust charter would also help Circle meet requirements under the GENIUS Act.

“Establishing a national digital currency trust bank of this kind marks a significant milestone in our goal to build an internet financial system that is transparent, efficient and accessible,” Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said in a statement shared with CNBC. “By applying for a national trust charter, Circle is taking proactive steps to further strengthen our USDC infrastructure.”

“Further, we will align with emerging U.S. regulation for the issuance and operation of dollar-denominated payment stablecoins, which we believe can enhance the reach and resilience of the U.S. dollar, and support the development of crucial, market neutral infrastructure for the world’s leading institutions to build on,” he said.

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