nCino grows through acquisitions as new CEO takes the reins

Fintech company nCino is pursuing growth through acquisitions and new product development as Sean Desmond starts his new role as CEO of the company.

nCino announced its purchase of banking technology provider Sandbox Banking for $52.5 million in cash on Tuesday. Previously, nCino also acquired the U.K.-based software company FullCircl for $135 million in October 2024.

"As we're crossing over a half a billion dollars in revenue, we look to aggressively grow this company," Desmond told American Banker. "I think we're at a great time in the market right now."

nCino earned $475.5 million in revenue in fiscal year 2024 and is expecting to break over $500 million by the end of fiscal year 2025.

"There's a posture of expectation for growth in loans and deposits, in revenue and in earnings for our banks," Desmond said. "They're starting to think about getting aggressive with their posture toward technology spend."

Research from American Banker indicates a strong trend toward increased tech spend from financial institutions, with 80% of respondents to an American Banker survey planning to increase their investments in technology next year.

nCino is positioning itself to claim some of that market share by developing and promoting its digital products, Desmond said.

"We are leaning into the biggest growth leverage we have at the company," he said, "and we'll continue to cross-sell and upsell across our solution set through delivering intelligence to our customers. We'll also mine revenue from Banking Advisor."

Banking Advisor, an AI chatbot built by nCino, is being tested by banks as they "chat" with their internal data and documents and seek to improve analytic efficiency in various departments.

Other product development emphases include various data initiatives, Desmond said. 

"The first will be the ability to deliver insights to our customers and help folks understand the trends that are happening," he said, "and set expectations for customers in terms of what good looks like on things like loan approval processes. That's just an ongoing initiative here at the company."

nCino is also investing in creating a research institute that would gather and analyze nCino customers' data, Desmond said.

"The only way we can do that is if our customers give us consent to participate — meaning that, of course, we don't have access to PII [personal identifying information] and sensitive information, and it's all secure. But we would have access to their data such that we could read out broad insights on what's going on across the financial institution space," he said.

nCino is also preparing for financial institutions' responses to deregulation in the United States under the new administration.

"There's excitement in the industry around deregulation," Desmond said. "That's not a political statement. That's just a reality. With the Fed loosening its grip on regulation, that eases the burden on some of these banks to invest in technology as well as to bring technology solutions to market."