Zum Rails
👤 Miles Schwartz (Three payments insiders. Miles was first salesperson, closing deals on a 7-week runway while VCs passed.)🌐 site
Three payments insiders VCs wouldn't fund sold their way to $10M ARR — then the VCs came to them.
Will it work? · our read
Profitable rails. Bootstrapped a regulated fintech to $10M ARR profitably, then raised once from strength. The merged-rails wedge is real; the thin margins it rents are the open question.
01How the money moves
Fintech integrates one Zum Rails API
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Pulls bank data + KYC, pushes instant payments
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Zum Rails bills fees on every transaction
02The numbers
$10M ARRStatedbootstrapped, pre-raise
2023
The $10M is ARR (bootstrapped, pre-raise); $1B+/mo is payment volume processed, not revenue. BetaKit
Hit $10M ARR profitably with no funding, then raised $10.5M CAD (2024).
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Sources always public on all 478 cases · cancel anytime · 14-day refund
See a full teardown, free → ImportYetiSourcesSources last checked 21 July 2026
Practical Founders #69 — Miles Schwartz states "$10M in ARR" STATEDBetaKit — bootstrapped, profitable, $10.5M CAD Series A (Feb 2024), 40 staffFinovate — same round as $7.78M USD; $1B+ monthly payment volume
sourced=STATED: the $10M ARR is first-party — co-founder Miles Schwartz stated it on Practical Founders #69 (the page carries the exact string "$10M in ARR"), and BetaKit (Feb 2024) reaffirms it as "achieved last year" for a bootstrapped, always-profitable company. asOf 2023. Currency caution: US press frames it as "$10M ARR" without specifying CAD vs USD; the company is Montreal-based, so it may be CAD. The Series A is explicitly $10.5M CAD (Finovate gives the same round as $7.78M USD) led by Arthur Ventures — so "bootstrapped" describes the run TO $10M ARR, not the current cap table. $1B+/mo is payment VOLUME processed (Finovate), not revenue. Co-founders: Marc Milewski (CEO), Miles Schwartz (CSO), Marcel Ferreira (CTO); founded 2019; 40 employees. No fabricated drama — that VCs declined to fund them early, and that Miles was the first salesperson, are both stated by the founder on the podcast. We never score you.