William Hockey

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]

William Hockey
Hockey in 2018
Born	(1989-09-21) September 21, 1989 (age 33) San Luis Obispo, California
Education	The Thacher School
Alma mater	Emory University
Known for	Plaid

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 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 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]

References

1. "Column N.A." Forbes. Retrieved 2023-04-15.
2. "Plaid: Fintech's Happy Plumbers". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-01-27.
3. "Goizueta Beyond". Retrieved 2020-01-27.
4. Rooney, Kate (2018-10-04). "Meet the start-up you've never heard of that powers Venmo, Robinhood and other big consumer apps". CNBC. Retrieved 2020-01-27.
5. Chapman, Lizette (December 11, 2018). "Mary Meeker Leads Funding Said to Value Plaid at $2.7 Billion". Bloomberg.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
6. "Visa and Mastercard Sign Up for Investments in Fintech Unicorn Plaid". Fortune. Retrieved 2020-01-27.
7. Verhage, Julie (January 14, 2020). "Plaid's Founders Are Latest Fintech Royalty With Visa Deal". Bloomberg.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
8. Kauflin, Jeff. "Meet The Four Under 30s Behind Visa's $5.3 Billion Acquisition Of Plaid". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-01-27.
9. Roony, Kate (November 5, 2020). "DOJ seeks to block Visa's $5.3 billion acquisition of start-up Plaid over antitrust concerns". CNBC.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
10. Sandler, Rachel (January 13, 2021). "Visa, Fintech Startup Plaid Drop Merger Plans After DOJ Antitrust Lawsuit". Forbes.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
11. Kauflin, Jeff (April 7, 2021). "Plaid's $13.4 Billion Valuation Makes Its Founders Fintech's Newest Billionaires". Forbes.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
12. Clark, Kate (June 18, 2019). "Fresh off a $2.65B valuation, Plaid co-founder William Hockey is leaving". TechCrunch.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
13. Rudegeair, Peter (April 21, 2022). "Plaid Co-Founder Takes Aim at Rickety Banking Tech". Wall Street Journal.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)