Arc

Overview

Arc built a financial platform for technology companies: revenue-based financing, cash management, treasury products, and a marketplace for debt capital. Don Muir, Nick Lombardo, and Raven Jiang founded it in 2021, entered Y Combinator's Winter 2022 batch, and raised $31 million in equity alongside a $150 million lending facility.^[5][6]

Arc's path to a July 2026 acquisition by Axos was shaped by one structural fact. Software could lower the cost of serving startup finance teams, but deposits, payment rails, insured cash, and lending capacity still came from regulated institutions. Each product expansion increased the value of Arc's interface and the importance of its bank infrastructure.

Axos closed the acquisition on July 20, 2026. The price was not disclosed, and Arc told customers the same team and platform would continue.^[2][3]

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Founding Story

Don Muir came from corporate finance. He studied finance at Cornell, worked at Boston Consulting Group, moved into late-stage private equity, and then enrolled at Stanford Graduate School of Business.^[9][10] Nick Lombardo also worked in private equity and banking in New York. TechCrunch wrote that the pair had helped raise tens of billions of dollars for mature companies before business school.^[5]

Muir and Lombardo met at Stanford GSB. They found a sharp contrast between finance for established companies and finance for the founders around them. Large borrowers could run a competitive process among banks. Early-stage software companies faced slow underwriting, dilution, and products designed for larger accounts. Muir told Fintech One-on-One: “When I found entrepreneurship and saw what specifically was possible when you apply technology to the traditional financial markets, that was my aha moment.”^[10]

NFX met Muir and Lombardo before they had chosen a company name or precise direction. The investor backed the founders, their SaaS focus, and their ability to recruit partners such as Stripe.^[8] Lombardo summarized the operating problem in a 2022 interview: “We've seen how cumbersome and time-consuming this process is.”^[11]

Raven Jiang joined as founding CTO, pairing the finance thesis with a technical co-founder.^[6] The public record does not explain exactly how Jiang met Muir and Lombardo or document his own founding account.

The first product was Arc Advance. Arc raised a $150 million debt facility, built an underwriting model, and advanced capital against software companies' future revenue.^[5] The team came out of stealth in January 2022 with $11 million in seed equity and joined YC's Winter batch. The original wedge solved an urgent financing problem while generating the customer and underwriting data needed for a wider finance platform.

Timeline

• January 2021: Muir, Lombardo, and Jiang founded Arc; the company incorporated in April.^[6]
• January 2022: Arc emerged from stealth with $11 million in seed equity and a $150 million debt facility.^[5]
• June 2022: Arc launched Treasury with Stripe after starting with revenue-based financing.^[7]
• August 2022: Left Lane led a $20 million Series A.^[6]
• March 2023: Silicon Valley Bank failed; Arc later said its cash-management business grew roughly 20 to 30 times from that point.^[10]
• January 2024: Arc replaced direct lending with Arc Capital Markets, a two-sided debt marketplace.^[10]
• September 2025: The lender-facing AI product spun out as F2; Lombardo became CEO of Arc and launched Archie.^[4]
• July 20, 2026: Axos closed its acquisition of Arc.^[2]

What They Built

Arc began as a way for software startups to turn predictable future revenue into current cash. A customer connected its financial data; Arc's model forecast revenue and produced an offer. Forbes reported that Arc would advance 20% to 80% of forecast future revenue and discount future repayments by 5% to 12%, depending on underwriting risk.^[7]