Modern Treasury has hired a new head of engineering from Facebook’s WhatsApp and opened a new San Francisco headquarters, moving up from a co-working space.
The fast-growing company took 12,537 square feet on the fourth floor of 77 Geary St., near Union Square. Modern Treasury builds software that automates the entire process of businesses making payments — from initiation to approvals and processing to reconciliation — all from a single app.
The firm hired Shruthi Murthy, who was an early employee of WhatsApp, the messaging app that's been an increasingly popular way to make payments. She joined WhatsApp when it was a small team and was director of engineering when she left. Murthy previously worked at Zynga, Google and AMD.
“We were really focused on bringing in somebody who, on the one hand, has seen scale, but on the other hand also knows what a startup is like and how to stay focused, stay lean and really build with the end consumer in mind,” CEO Dimitri Dadiomov said.
“Shruthi’s experience building payments at WhatsApp makes her a perfect fit for Modern Treasury,” he continued. “She knows from experience the pain points that companies face in payment operations at scale.”
On the real estate side, the company plans to open a New York office in Manhattan by year-end in addition to the new San Francisco headquarters.
While Oracle, Charles Schwab and other big companies grab national attention as they moved their Bay Area headquarters out of California, there’s a growing chorus of entrepreneurs that say moving their startups out of the region is a nonstarter.
“San Francisco, and the Bay Area generally, are the heart of the tech industry. For us, we have ambitions to be a large, independent company. It’s hard to imagine a company with our mission, not having space here,” Dadiomov said.
The company has a hybrid workforce model, with some employees working remotely and having the option to work in the new office.
“The way we think about the office is that it’s the town square. It creates a center of gravity for the company,” Dadiomov said.
Modern Treasury is giving new meaning to a corporate art collection when it decked out the new headquarters. The company paid employees for artwork they created to decorate the company’s new office, often featuring photography and paintings. Engineers made computer-generated art, with one abstract piece created using an algorithm. The office is also outfitted with secondhand furniture from Reseat, reflecting the Modern Treasury team’s concern for the environment, Dadiomov said.
Some may wonder when employees find the time for their art pursuits. The company reconciled $2 billion in transaction volume in June, up from $1 billion in March. That was up from just $100 million in August 2020.
The growth reflects in part a client base that includes Oakland-based Marqeta, San Francisco proptech Side and Austin-based startup Sana Benefits, which provides self-funded health insurance for small businesses.
Modern Treasury has a workforce of 45 and plans to raise that to 65 to 70 by year-end and 150 to 200 by the end of 2022.
