糖心视频

Days after Visa scooped up fintech startup Plaid for $5.3 billion, the company has doled out money to another fintech company. Visa has invested an undisclosed amount into Very Good Security (VGS), which helps fintech companies better protect their data.

Subscribe to the Crunchbase Daily

works with startups like Brex and Petal to hide sensitive data and swap it for an alias of sorts. Per Cosmin Nicolaescu, head of engineering at Brex, VGS helps the team store sensitive information and act as a proxy between Brex and Mastercard.

In other words, VGS helps other companies with compliance, and safely handles things like credit card numbers to protect identities. As , VGS customers can 鈥渋ssue credit cards without ever having to see a card number and they can run background checks without needing to hold Social Security Numbers.鈥�

VGS last raised money in October 2019 for its Series B led by , according to Crunchbase. The company raised for its Series A in August 2018 with as the lead investor. Other investors in VGS include Vertex Ventures US and , the founder of .

VGS wants to make it easier for companies to build new fintech experiences and products, VGS vice president of business development strategy said in an email to Crunchbase News. Berg also used to be the head of Visa Ventures, according to his LinkedIn profile.

鈥淭here鈥檚 a need for specialized infrastructure to handle the toughest challenges in fintech. VGS is building that infrastructure and making it easier for companies to get value from sensitive data without compromising security or privacy,鈥� Berg wrote.

This isn鈥檛 the first time Visa and VGS have worked together. Visa chose VGS as a partner for its Fintech Fast Track program earlier this year.

It鈥檚 worth noting that Visa has invested , according to Crunchbase data. Beyond VGS, Visa has invested in a variety of companies like Square and Finix (which both help with payment processing) to Gojek, which is an Indonesian ride-hailing company trying to become a super app.

This week鈥檚 news contrasts slightly because of a very obvious focus: back-to-back deals solely focused on fintech. We鈥檒l see if Visa鈥檚 2020 kickoff plays out into a successful suite of finance services, in the year to come.

Illustration: