Marqeta started at a San Francisco sushi bar in December 2009, when a friend pulled out a handful of Groupon coupons. He told Jason Gardner, a payments veteran, to find a way to put them on a card. That idea grew into a platform that let companies like Square create and control their own debit cards through software. By its June 2021 IPO, Square alone brought in 70 percent of Marqeta's revenue.

Cards You Can Program

Gardner had co-founded a company that MoneyGram bought. He started Marqeta in 2010. Legacy card issuing technology was rigid and slow to change. Marqeta offered a modern cloud platform with open APIs. A company could decide in code where a card worked, how much it could spend, and when to approve each swipe. Square became a customer in 2016 and launched its Square Card on Marqeta in 2018. DoorDash used it to pay for orders, and Affirm and Klarna used it for installment cards.

Square-Sized Risk

Marqeta priced its IPO at $27 a share in June 2021 and listed on Nasdaq as MQ. Its biggest strength was also its biggest risk, since one customer drove most of its sales. The stock fell well below its offer price. Gardner handed the CEO job to Simon Khalaf in January 2023 and became executive chairman. Khalaf stepped down in February 2025, and the board named finance chief Mike Milotich CEO that September. Marqeta still trades on Nasdaq.

Cover: The Card Players, Charles Émile Jacque. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for card players (a card company).