Marqeta shakes up leadership, acquires European provider

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Marqeta's long quest to diversify its client base and product mix has taken another turn, as the company will seek a new CEO and agreed to acquire a European payments firm to bolster its reach in new markets. 

The Oakland, Calif.-based Marqeta has appointed Mike Milotich as interim chief executive officer. Milotich is Marqeta's CFO, and he will retain the position. Milotich is succeeding Simon Khalaf, who has stepped down as CEO and director. 

Marqeta has also agreed to acquire TransactPay, a Gibraltar-based company that processes payments in the U.K. and the European Union. 

For Marqeta, it's the second leadership restructuring in less than three years as the payments firm attempts to reverse a stock slide. The company in August 2022 announced founder Jason Gardner would step aside as CEO, a move that became effective in January 2023 when Khalaf took the company's top job. 

Marqeta, which was founded in 2010, has traditionally relied on Block — formerly Square — for revenue. Block at one time contributed nearly 70% of Marqeta's revenue via Cash App, which Marqeta supports, a percentage the company for years had been trying to reduce. 

Marqeta's share price on Friday was down about 1% at $4.18 and has lost 42% in the past year. It's current price is a far cry from its closing high of $32 in June 2021, when the shares first went public.

"It is clear Marqeta remains an important growth driver of Block's ability to monetize Cash App users, yet customer concentration remains elevated as Block represents 47% of 2024 revenues," analysts at William Blair said in a note.

During Khalaf's tenure, Marqeta acquired Power Finance, a firm that uses the cloud to deliver credit card issuance to financial and nonfinancial institutions, as well as infrastructure that embeds financial products and user experiences into the Power credit card issuance program, enabling Marqeta to tap the emerging trend toward embedded finance. 

Marqeta's recent activities include a plan to add American Express as a new option on Marqeta's platform to expand embedded finance. It also signed several European clients. 

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"In 2024, we empowered our customers to achieve significant growth and scale, maintaining both stability and compliance," Milotich said in a release. "Entering 2025, our strengthened platform uniquely positions us to serve fintechs and embedded finance with comprehensive debit, credit, and money movement solutions, all fueled by accelerated payment innovation, streamlined operations, and new network and bank partnerships."

Marqeta in the quarter ended Dec. 31 reported net revenue of $136 million, up 14% from a year ago, and a net loss of $27 million. The company expects net revenue growth of 14% to 16% in the first quarter of this year and 16% to 18% growth for the full year.

"Marqeta's focus on debit products is additive to [American Express] as it could help bring low-cost deposits, while Amex brand/capabilities should be additive to Marqeta," William Blair's analyst note said, adding that Marqeta anticipates $40 million

of revenue contribution from new programs in 2025 (versus $20 million in 2024). "We are encouraged by some of the internal efforts to improve customer onboarding; however, the quarterly progression in 2025 is expected to be choppy."