FT Partners’ Steve McLaughlin Featured on Turpentine Finance Podcast with Sasha Orloff: “The Dealmaker’s Secrets: Steve McLaughlin on Crafting A Fundraise Story Worth $33B, FT Partners' CEO”
In this conversation, Sasha Orloff sits down with Steve McLaughlin, CEO and Managing Partner of FT Partners. Steve provides an insider’s look into the high-stakes world of capital raising and dealmaking for high-growth private companies. From being Goldman Sachs’ Former Head of FinTech to founding FT Partners, a global FinTech investment bank, McLaughlin shares his strategies for crafting compelling narratives that unlock massive fundraising rounds - like the $33 billion valuation for Revolut and a $100 million plus raise for Sam Altman’s Worldcoin. They dive deep into storytelling, the importance of product over marketing spend, founder red flags, and much more.
FT Partners Served as Financial Advisor to Deribit on its $2,900,000,000 Sale to Coinbase
On May 8, 2025, Coinbase announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Deribit for a total consideration of approximately $2.9 billion, consisting of $700 million in cash and 11 million shares of Coinbase Class A common stock. Founded in 2016, Deribit is the world’s leading crypto options and futures exchange, providing institutional-grade infrastructure for derivatives trading across Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other major tokens. This strategic acquisition makes Coinbase the global leader in crypto derivatives by open interest and options volume, with Deribit’s robust options platform complementing Coinbase’s rapidly growing US futures and international perpetual futures businesses. This transaction is the largest strategic M&A deal ever in the Digital Assets space.
FT Partners Served as Financial Advisor to AvidXchange on its $2,200,000,000 Sale to TPG & Corpay
On May 6, 2025, AvidXchange Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: AVDX) announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by a consortium led by TPG (NASDAQ: TPG), a leading global alternative asset manager, and Corpay (NYSE: CPAY), a global leader in corporate payments, for $10.00 per share in cash, which represents a 45% premium over the Company’s unaffected price of $6.89. AvidXchange is a leading provider of accounts payable (AP) automation software and payment solutions for middle market businesses and their suppliers. FT Partners has been engaged in a long-term financial advisory role with AvidXchange since 2009 and has since advised the Company on every major capital raise, buyside acquisition, its 2021 IPO, and its announced sale in 2025 to TPG, totaling over 16 transactions. AvidXchange's equity value has increased over 100x over this time period.
FT Partners Served as Financial Advisor to Hidden Road on its $1,250,000,000 Sale to Ripple
On April 8, 2025, Ripple Labs announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Hidden Road for a total consideration of $1.25 billion, one of the largest deals ever in the digital assets space. Founded in 2018, Hidden Road is one of the fastest-growing prime brokers globally, offering institutions a one-stop-shop of advanced services including clearing, prime brokerage, and financing across foreign exchange (FX), digital assets, derivatives, swaps, and fixed income. With the acquisition, Ripple becomes the first crypto company to own and operate a global, multi-asset prime broker.
FT Partners’ Founder & CEO Steve McLaughlin featured on Slice of Finance Podcast
In the episode, Steve and host Jared Taylor discuss Steve’s journey from Goldman Sachs to founding FT Partners, IPOs vs why companies are staying private longer, and current FinTech trends – beyond AI – such as identity and security, and stablecoins and B2B payments.
FT Partners Served as Financial Advisor to Banyan on its Sale to Bilt
On March 13, 2025, Bilt Rewards (“Bilt”), the leading payments and commerce platform transforming the $2.1 trillion housing payments market, announced its first ever acquisition, purchasing Banyan, the industry-leading platform for item-level transaction intelligence. This landmark strategic transaction unites two FT Partners clients, generating a great outcome for Banyan and its shareholders while greatly enhancing Bilt’s neighborhood commerce capabilities.
FT Partners Served as Financial Advisor to Mesh on its $82,000,000 Series B
On March 11, 2025, Mesh, the leading crypto payments network enabling seamless transactions with cheap and immediate conversions, announced it closed an $82 million Series B funding round, bringing its total amount raised to $122 million. The round was led by Paradigm, with participation from Consensys, QuantumLight Capital, Yolo Investments and others, who join existing investors including PayPal Ventures, Galaxy and MoneyForward. In a historic moment for both venture funding and stablecoins, most of the investment was settled with PayPal’s PYUSD stablecoin – PYUSD was leveraged to close funding instantly and Mesh’s technology was used to transfer the assets securely.
FT Partners’ Steve McLaughlin Featured on the Paris FinTech Forum Interview Series
In this episode, host Elliott Gotkine interviews Steve McLaughlin, Founder & CEO of FT Partners. Hear about what FT Partners is doing in the FinTech ecosystem, Steve’s career journey, and his views on the Digital Finance & FinTech world. This series is part of the Paris FinTech Forum Communities, a collection of top-level digital content and exclusive in person networking events produced by Laurent Nizri (Alteir Event).
FT Partners’ Steve McLaughlin Featured on the 10X Capital Podcast: “How FT Partners Beats Bulge Bracket Banks”
Steve McLaughlin, Founder and CEO of Financial Technology Partners sits down with David Weisburd, Co-Founder of 10X Capital, to discuss the hidden values and success of top FinTech companies, insider perspective on the work-life balance myth, and the powerful face-to-face strategies that elite companies swear by.
FT Partners’ Steve McLaughlin Featured on The FinTech OG Podcast Series
Steve McLaughlin, Founder and CEO of FT Partners and Matt Harris, Partner at Bain Capital Ventures, chat with Julie VerHage-Greenberg to offer insights from their decades-long careers in FinTech into where the space has created the most value, where there’s room to grow and if FinTech is still a good place to build.
