Green Dot: The $2 Billion IPO You’ve Never Heard Of

Green Dot: The $2 Billion IPO You’ve Never Heard Of
There’s a good chance you’ve seen prepaid credit cards on the shelves at 7-11, Walmart, CVS, Rite Aid, Radio Shack or a variety of other retail outlets. Those cards are usually issued by Green Dot, a Los Angeles based startup that went public earlier this year and is worth over $2 billion.

They allow people who normally can’t get credit cards – like teens and those with poor credit – a way to pay for things like the rest of us do, with a Visa or Mastercard. And people love them. The company made $64 million in profit in 2009 on sales of nearly $235 million. The company boasts over ten million customers.
That isn’t what makes Green Dot special though. You have to hear the story of the ten year old company from founder and CEO Steve Streit and early investor/board member Michael Moritz from Sequoia Capital.