Wade Arnold is co-founder and chief executive of Moov, the payments platform that lets software companies accept, store, send and spend money on direct network connections. He founded it with Bob Smith in 2018, after building and selling a bank technology company in the cornfields of Iowa.
A BMX Rider Who Codes
A former semi-pro BMX rider, he has always treated computers and the internet as a creative outlet. "What we build with software is truly an art," he has said. In 2008 he took charge of T8 Webware, a web design shop in Cedar Falls, Iowa, that built apps and websites for banks.
Banno, the Imaginary Friend
After the recession hit, he and his wife struggled to track their spending. During one heated conversation their son suggested they ask Banno, his imaginary friend. In 2012 T8 Webware became Banno. He raised half a million dollars from local commercial property developers over lunches at a strip-mall bar he called "Banno East," and by 2013 the company had nearly 60 staff and almost 400 bank customers. He sold Banno to Jack Henry in 2014.
Building Moov
Moov began with open-source payments code and raised a $5.5 million seed in August 2020 and a $27 million Series A that December. It won the Visa Everywhere Initiative in 2021, and in January 2023 Visa made its first investment in Moov's $45 million Series B, led by Commerce Ventures with Andreessen Horowitz and Bain Capital Ventures.
Leading the Engineers
His hardest change, he has said, was moving from being the most technically capable person in the room to creating a place where the most capable people want to work. He no longer writes Moov's code, but he picked the people who do, and he warns against reconstructing cathedrals before customers have seen the product.
He once pitched investors over lunch at a strip-mall bar in Cedar Falls. He now builds the payment rails that software companies plug straight into.
