Standard Treasury

Standard Treasury was a San Francisco-based financial technology company founded in 2013 and a member of Y Combinator's Summer 2013 batch. It is described as one of the first banking API platforms. The company built, hosted, maintained and supported white-labeled and co-branded developer platforms for banks worldwide, allowing those banks to expose APIs to developers and developer ecosystems.

According to the company description, partner banks using Standard Treasury saw top-line growth through decreased cost of servicing customers, decreased churn and increased transaction volumes, while their own customers gained the ability to automate treasury management and accounting processes.

The founding team consisted of Daniel Kimerling (Founder/CEO, focused on business development and sales), Brent Goldman (Founder/CTO, previously a computer science student at Caltech and four and a half years at Facebook on Platform), and Zac Townsend (Founder/Head of Product, previously at Stripe and the Mayor's office in Newark, New Jersey). Standard Treasury was acquired by Silicon Valley Bank in August 2015. Townsend subsequently became the inaugural Chief Data Officer of California and a leader in McKinsey's banking practice; Goldman later worked at Uber pre-IPO and moved into AI, angel investing and coaching.

Founding story

Co-founders Zac Townsend and Daniel Kimerling met at Harvard Summer School in 2003, both from New Jersey, and maintained a close friendship over the following decade, including a month traveling together in India in 2006. After working in government, including the Mayor's office in Newark, New Jersey, Townsend moved to San Francisco to work at Stripe and be closer to Kimerling; the two applied to Y Combinator and started Standard Treasury. Brent Goldman, who had been known to them for only months and was vetted through mutual friends and professional contacts, joined as the third co-founder and CTO during the Y Combinator batch. Townsend has publicly written that co-founders should either be old friends or the result of a careful, deliberate vetting process, citing these two relationships as examples.

Business model

Standard Treasury built, hosted, maintained and supported developer platforms on behalf of banks, offering them as white-labeled or co-branded products. Its counterparties were partner banks worldwide rather than end customers, and the stated value proposition to those banks was material top-line growth via lower cost of servicing customers, reduced churn and higher transaction volumes.

Traction

Public sources do not disclose customer counts or revenue. Y Combinator states that partner banks saw top-line growth through decreased servicing costs, decreased churn and increased transaction volumes. One aggregator listing reports $0 raised and no disclosed financial history.

Latest developments

Standard Treasury was acquired by Silicon Valley Bank in August 2015 and is listed by Y Combinator with status "Acquired." One aggregator listing labels the organization's status as active and private with $0 raised, which conflicts with the acquisition evidence.