Grasshopper Bank

Grasshopper Bank

Founded in 2019 under a de novo national bank charter — the first of its kind issued in over a decade — Grasshopper Bank emerged with an explicit mandate to serve small businesses, startups, and private-capital investors. Led by President and CEO Mike Butler, the bank operates from its headquarters in New York City. It was capitalized by a group of institutional and private investors who saw a gap in a US banking market where the fastest-growing companies often struggled to find a commercial bank that understood their cap tables and cash-burn dynamics. Grasshopper structures its commercial lending around the needs of venture-backed technology and life-sciences companies, offering venture debt facilities designed to sit alongside equity rounds rather than replace them. Beyond lending, the platform provides full-stack digital banking — deposit products, treasury management, and API-driven integrations — targeted at sponsors and their portfolio companies. Its strategy spans multiple asset classes, including commercial and industrial (C&I) lending, structured finance, and the provision of banking-as-a-service to select fintech partners. The bank typically targets growth-stage companies, extending credit to pre-profit businesses backed by recognizable venture capital firms. While individual portfolio names remain largely undisclosed as a condition of its banking relationships, Grasshopper's marketing and regulatory disclosures indicate a book concentrated in technology, biotechnology, and specialty finance. Grasshopper Bank maintains a single physical presence beyond its New York headquarters: a technology and operations hub in Dallas, Texas. Team size and total assets under management are not publicly disclosed with quarterly consistency. The bank's 2023 and 2024 regulatory filings show continued balance-sheet growth, reflecting an increasing pace of venture-debt origination. No adjacent family office or separate philanthropic vehicle operates under the Grasshopper umbrella — the organization functions solely as a regulated banking entity. The bank remains privately held, with no publicly traded parent. As a de novo, Grasshopper occupies an unusual regulatory posture. Unlike a typical community bank, it targeted a national client base from inception. Unlike a Silicon Valley Bank-style non-bank lender, it holds a full banking charter, giving it access to FDIC-insured deposits and the Federal Reserve discount window. That hybrid structure makes it a direct-balance-sheet lender with a stable, low-cost funding base, competing against both traditional debt funds and larger regional banks for founder relationships.