Patrick Mrozowski

Met Yacine in W19. Watched him navigate multiple pivots, a co-founder blow up, and a failed M&A process. Through all of it he kept fighting, scaled Parker to $1B in annualized volume and tens of millions in revenue, and never stopped pushing until circumstances made the decision for him. I reviewed their data room. Credit performance on recent cohorts was rock solid, sub-1% charge-off rates, and their spending customers were monsters even by my standards. The business had real fundamentals. Building a startup and keeping it alive for 8 years, scaling to that kind of revenue, is genuinely hard. Anyone posting takes right now should remember that every lending fintech is a couple moves away from breaching lender covenants and ending up in the same place. Good reminder to stay humble. Respect to Yacine, the team, and everyone who believed in Parker. Sad outcome. The revenge arc is coming.

Well, that was a crazy turn of events. Three weeks ago, I thought Parker was going to be acquired in a deal worth nearly $90M. Yesterday, we filed for Chapter 7. I spent most of my twenties building Parker. We went from an idea in YC to processing over $1B in annualized volume, pioneered products that became standard across fintech, and built something I believed could last for decades. And now it’s over. I know there’s going to be speculation about why Parker failed, but a lot of what’s being said online is simply not accurate. Over the last few years, we faced leadership turnover, a much tougher market, slowing growth, and the realities of trying to scale a venture-backed business after momentum fades. Earlier this year, we decided the best path forward was to pursue a sale of the business. We ran a process and spent months working toward a potential acquisition that ultimately did not close. After that, things moved quickly. The hardest part is the impact on the people involved: •Customers dealing with disruption •Employees losing jobs they worked hard for •Investors who believed in us losing money What I am proud of is the team. Parker was built by incredibly talented people who deserved a better outcome than this. Helping them land somewhere great is my top priority right now. If you’re hiring operators, engineers, designers, finance, credit, or growth talent, please reach out. To everyone who believed in Parker over the years: thank you.

@Ryan_Falvey @JTylerGriffin @restivevc @ben_glenney @cameronpeake @tpbrown5 Congrats Ryan and Ty! You guys have been incredible to work with.

Today we're taking the wraps off Restive Fund III: $45M to back founders building the AI-powered future of financial services. When @JTylerGriffin and I started @restivevc in 2018, we thought we had good timing. But today, is even a better time to build! Some thoughts:

@eladgil Cotogna - no question

What is best Italian in SF?

We’re proud to announce our $40M funding round led by @eladgil and Verified Capital, alongside @01Advisors and @MarathonMP. This capital will expand our foundation, advancing in-house technology and operations, and enhancing our dining, lifestyle and travel offering.

@atlascardhq raised $40M led by @eladgil and @verified with support from @MarathonMP, @01Advisors, and @ycombinator In the past year we've onboarded thousands of members, achieved retention metrics that mirror best-in-class enterprise products, and nearly 5x'd TPV, all by combining high-tech and high-touch to deliver access at scale. Job's barely started. Back to building.

Most podcasts are BS because they are fluffy and lack substance. This is the densest, most insightful episode you will listen to this year. @gokulr breaks down the 8 defensible moats you need for your company to be successful in a world of AI. 1. Data (Proprietary and inaccessible) 2. Workflow (Deeply embedded operations) 3. Regulatory (Licenses and contracts) 4. Distribution (Exclusive proprietary channels) 5. Ecosystem (Third-party platform reliance) 6. Network (Marketplace liquidity density) 7. Physical (Infrastructure and atoms) 8. Scale (Low cost through volume) (Links below)

@MarathonMP has truly been a really great partner to @atlascardhq It's a smart move to open an office in LA (underrated city for building) and the vibes and location in the space are solid Bonus that @MBGilroy doesn't mention is the complimentary Erewhon smoothies

.@MarathonMP Los Angeles is officially open for business. Similar to NYC, we have lots of free open space & offices for inception stage founders working on their next business. We started this in NYC when we launched the firm and it has led to us investing twice, including an incubation. No hooks or expectations for us to invest, just great space to be around high-energy / passionate folks across our ecosystem. Investors and late-stage operators who are passing through town, our door is always open for you too! TMC @gokulr @AlexGorgoni @ChaseAPackard

We have a winner!!!

@bykahlil Love this

Update on the iconic fintech cards

@Simonkhalaf @klarnaseb Cardholder count is a vanity metric. The only number that matters is spend. If people aren’t running volume through the product it’s not delivering real value

The Future of Consumer Cards is Flex. Congrats @klarnaseb on setting a record. 10x more lovable. open.substack.com/pub/simonkhala…

Earlier this year I onboarded someone with two assistants, a $50K a year concierge, and Amex Centurion. He was super skeptical and didn’t join for a few weeks. In his first week on Atlas, one text got him the res he’d been striking out on for months. A few days later he canceled the $50K concierge, cut an assistant, and admitted we replaced a setup that was draining tens of thousands a year and wasting hours of time. Since then he’s referred us half his network. Sometimes things aren’t “too good to be true.” The bar is just insanely low.

@scottew 💯

many winners in fintech

@tanayj 🎯

@patrickmro Corner store

Despite the NYC mayor election outcome the city is still pumping @atlascardhq is handling thousands of dining requests every month and 9 of the top 10 restaurants are in New York (1 in Miami) #2 on the list didn’t even exist eight weeks ago NYC dining volume is running 7x higher than any other city

FinTech was “dead.” Now we have: @Ramp at $32B @Robinhood from $6B to $100B+ market cap @Dave from ~$100M to ~$3B market cap @atlascardhq rebuilt from Point. Tracking toward $1B+ TPV (with 0 marketing). And serving the highest-spenders on earth with a ~25-person team that’s shipped an AI concierge, the 1st Visa Infinite Biz Card, a global travel agency, and restaurant access nobody else has… all in the last ~ 12 mo. Bullish on the ecosystem

@gokulrajaram/the-weekly-ceo-e-mail-b5eaafcee6fa" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">medium.com/@gokulrajaram/…

The next big consumer category is AI concierge Most will serve AI slop…generic recs dressed up as intelligence. Access and taste become moats