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Looks good, just curious why they didn't do it 5 years ago when this stuff was still hard. * Incorporate with Stripe Atlas (just did it for the 2nd time and it

Looks good, just curious why they didn't do it 5 years ago when this stuff was still hard. * Incorporate with Stripe Atlas (just did it for the 2nd time and it was even smoother then the first) * Mercury bank is incredible, I'm sure Blue Ridge would be a step down. * Carta for equity * Fundraising would be interesting, but PartyRound seems to be moving fast here.

paxys 5y ago
Agreed. It's hard enough to go after an established player with a few years' head start in a single sector, but Angel is simultaneously tackling like 4-6 of them. All the best to them.
b20000 5y ago
so what does mercury bank offer me? I visited the site and cannot find anything that seems like a massive advantage over some big name bank.
- ryanwiggins 5y ago
  Disclosure: I am the current head of growth at Mercury - Mercury is online first and built for online companies... that means you never have to go in person to sign documents, we have APIs/integrations that connect to the tools you likely use for your business, etc. - Many of the bigger banks charge fees or have otherwise poor experiences (wires, maintenance, minimum balances)that Mercury is better at: free accounts, no minimum balance, free wires, and just a general attitude of no-fees-wherever-possible - The design and craft of the product experience around Mercury is super high - little details like transactions filters, easily being able to copy any account/routing number or auto-filling addresses, etc, make a huge difference when you compare side by side. - Lots of other reasons, but I'll wrap with we're just getting started =) But don't take my word for it - search Twitter (https://twitter.com/search?q=bankmercury https://twitter.com/search?q=bankmercury) and see what our customers say
  - dopp0 5y ago
    all of that loses to freezing an account and making your customer lose business, right? I can imagine having a bank account frozen, how much money and customers you can lose because of this.
  - b20000 5y ago
    what you should really do, is solve the lending problem. as a startup founder it has been impossible to get a corporate credit card without personal guarantees, even if I asked for a low dollar limit (e.g. 10K). in europe, that was never a problem for me. not giving a personal guarantee has nothing to do with being a scammer or shady person, but preventing the piercing of the limited liability aspect of the company you are founding. also, do not ask founders to deposit collateral to solve this problem. that's just lame and uncreative. VC funding or proven revenue should also not be demanded.
- irl_chad 5y ago
  I had a horrible experience with Mercury bank. I’m a US citizen, but living in a foreign country (which is a US ally…). Mercury had no problem opening my account - but then a few months later froze my account for a week with no heads up. All my transactions just suddenly stopped working, no explanation. Support was completely unhelpful. Eventually they closed my account because of my geolocation and let me transfer the $ that was held out, but only after serious harm to the credibility of my business (late invoices, having to explain to partners that my bank account was frozen - resulting in loss of a partnership that would have resulted in a few hundred K in revenue). Now I use a major US bank and could not be happier. Startup banks are a huge risk to business, I will never use one again.
  - ramraj07 5y ago
    I operated my Mercury account as a non resident with zero issues, all I did was have a mailing address in the US. Did you have one? I don't think they flagged any of my activity from India as such.
    - irl_chad 5y ago
      Yep. I have a personal US address and obviously a business address. They had no problems opening the account.
  - 55555 5y ago
    I had a very similar problem. Don't rely on fake banks. Funds frozen after one "red flag." But on the other hand if you have a very standard and non-controversial business you're unlikely to have issues.

paxys 5y ago

Agreed. It's hard enough to go after an established player with a few years' head start in a single sector, but Angel is simultaneously tackling like 4-6 of them. All the best to them.

b20000 5y ago

so what does mercury bank offer me? I visited the site and cannot find anything that seems like a massive advantage over some big name bank.

ryanwiggins 5y ago
Disclosure: I am the current head of growth at Mercury - Mercury is online first and built for online companies... that means you never have to go in person to sign documents, we have APIs/integrations that connect to the tools you likely use for your business, etc. - Many of the bigger banks charge fees or have otherwise poor experiences (wires, maintenance, minimum balances)that Mercury is better at: free accounts, no minimum balance, free wires, and just a general attitude of no-fees-wherever-possible - The design and craft of the product experience around Mercury is super high - little details like transactions filters, easily being able to copy any account/routing number or auto-filling addresses, etc, make a huge difference when you compare side by side. - Lots of other reasons, but I'll wrap with we're just getting started =) But don't take my word for it - search Twitter (https://twitter.com/search?q=bankmercury https://twitter.com/search?q=bankmercury) and see what our customers say
- dopp0 5y ago
  all of that loses to freezing an account and making your customer lose business, right? I can imagine having a bank account frozen, how much money and customers you can lose because of this.
- b20000 5y ago
  what you should really do, is solve the lending problem. as a startup founder it has been impossible to get a corporate credit card without personal guarantees, even if I asked for a low dollar limit (e.g. 10K). in europe, that was never a problem for me. not giving a personal guarantee has nothing to do with being a scammer or shady person, but preventing the piercing of the limited liability aspect of the company you are founding. also, do not ask founders to deposit collateral to solve this problem. that's just lame and uncreative. VC funding or proven revenue should also not be demanded.
irl_chad 5y ago
I had a horrible experience with Mercury bank. I’m a US citizen, but living in a foreign country (which is a US ally…). Mercury had no problem opening my account - but then a few months later froze my account for a week with no heads up. All my transactions just suddenly stopped working, no explanation. Support was completely unhelpful. Eventually they closed my account because of my geolocation and let me transfer the $ that was held out, but only after serious harm to the credibility of my business (late invoices, having to explain to partners that my bank account was frozen - resulting in loss of a partnership that would have resulted in a few hundred K in revenue). Now I use a major US bank and could not be happier. Startup banks are a huge risk to business, I will never use one again.
- ramraj07 5y ago
  I operated my Mercury account as a non resident with zero issues, all I did was have a mailing address in the US. Did you have one? I don't think they flagged any of my activity from India as such.
  - irl_chad 5y ago
    Yep. I have a personal US address and obviously a business address. They had no problems opening the account.
- 55555 5y ago
  I had a very similar problem. Don't rely on fake banks. Funds frozen after one "red flag." But on the other hand if you have a very standard and non-controversial business you're unlikely to have issues.