2026 at Pipe: Building From Strong Foundations

If you remember anything from this read, it’s this: “It’s still Day 1”, as we would say in a famous tech company you know. And the growth is real.

Closing out 2025, and my first full month as CEO of Pipe, I wanted to share a few reflections on where we are as a business and why I continue to believe in the opportunity ahead.

My optimism for 2026 comes from knowing the foundation we’ve built over the last two years. Pipe relaunched and refocused in 2024 with the launch of Pipe Capital, informed by real learnings from our product and customers. We saw that the best and most scalable way to help small businesses around the world access capital was not by operating as a standalone destination, but by embedding capital in the platforms small businesses already use to run their day-to-day operations. And, in the quarters that followed, we validated this hypothesis by powering capital offerings for essential small business solutions like Boulevard and Housecall Pro.

A clearer business model – and compounding growth 

Entering into 2026, Pipe is a stronger and more focused company. In 2024, following the launch of Pipe Capital, we exited the year at an annualized revenue run rate exceeding $14 million, reflecting the scale of the business we had built by year-end. We will exit 2025 at more than three times that. We found strong product-market fit and rebuilt momentum. At every step, we stayed anchored on what matters most: delivering the lowest friction and most delightful solution to capital for our partners and the small businesses they serve. That customer focus has been a defining trait of Pipe, and it continues to be a competitive advantage as we scale.  

By 2025, we could see that Pipe’s reset around our capital product was working. With that clarity came an equally important realization: our cost structure did not fit the business we were building. As a leadership team, we made difficult but necessary decisions this year to position Pipe for profitability. That meant right-sizing the company around our key products, partners, geographies, and operating models. While we made the difficult decision to part ways with a lot of great employees, it was necessary to create a sustainable foundation for future growth. As a result, Pipe is entering 2026 with lower burn, growing revenue, and a far more resilient foundation for long-term growth. A lot of people contributed to this foundation who are no longer with us, and we’ll always be thankful for their contributions.

Deep alignment with partners 

When I think about where we are now, I am driven by the alignment we continue to have with the partners we work with every day, including platforms like Uber, Boulevard, Housecall Pro, Live Payments and GoCardless. Our partners see the same problem we do. They watch their merchants struggle with insufficient access to capital and the chores of managing their financial life.

Across these partnerships we hear the same themes: our technology has set a new benchmark for what embedded financial products can look like; our platform is easy to integrate with; our engineering and product teams are seen as best-in-class; our dedicated merchant services function shows that we care deeply about the SMB experience; and our ability to support multi-country launches is a key reason partners choose to work with Pipe.

Real impact for small businesses

The need for Pipe Capital is substantial. Traditional banks simply aren’t built for the velocity of small business. The process for banks to underwrite a $25,000 loan is often similar to a $2 million one, which has left small businesses massively underserved.

Anywhere you go in the world, you’ll find a large gap between what small businesses contribute to an economy, and how they’re served by banks and large financial institutions. Embedded capital changes that equation.

When our partners offer a capital solution, powered by Pipe, they see stronger retention and lower churn. We see almost two-thirds of merchants who take an advance return for another, a strong signal that the product is solving a real, recurring need. Net Promoter Scores for these programs are consistently 80+, well above industry benchmarks.

Looking ahead

We have a product that small businesses want, deep partnerships that allow SMBs to access capital inside the tools they’re already using, we are live in the markets our customers want to grow in and have a business model that can scale responsibly.

At the same time, we now are positioned for profitability. Not by pulling away from serving merchants, but by building a company that can serve them sustainably for the long term.

We end the year not just with momentum, but with clarity to match it.

“It’s still Day 1.” And the growth is real.