Ramp: What it Means and Why It's Trending
Ramp's $32 Billion Valuation: Genius or Mirage?
The Rocket Ship's Numbers
Ramp, the financial operations platform, has announced a $32 billion valuation following a $300 million financing round. That's a big number, even in today's inflated tech landscape. The press release boasts about doubling revenue and customers year-over-year, serving over 50,000 customers, and enabling $100 billion in annualized purchase volume. They're even throwing around terms like "thinking money" and claiming to save customers billions. Ramp Reaches $32 Billion Valuation, Doubling Revenue and Customers in Past Year
Let's dissect this, shall we?
The claim of saving customers over $10 billion and 27.5 million hours is eye-catching, but it's crucial to examine the basis of those savings. Ramp attributes this to efficiencies driven within the finance function and across companies. They highlight a doubling of zero-touch transactions for employees. Okay, automation is good, but let's not pretend this is some revolutionary breakthrough. Automation has been around for decades. What’s different here? What's the methodology for calculating these savings? It all feels a bit hand-wavy without seeing the underlying data.
Ramp is touting its AI agents – Agents for Controllers and Agents for AP – as game-changers. In October, their AI supposedly made 26,146,619 decisions across over $10 billion in spend. They claim their policy agent prevented 511,157 out-of-policy transactions, saving $290,981,801. Their treasury agent moved $5.5 million from idle cash to 4% investments, and the fraud agent blocked a $49,000 AI-generated fake invoice.
These are impressive-sounding figures, but they raise several questions. First, what constitutes an "out-of-policy transaction?" Are we talking about minor infractions or major fraud attempts? The scale matters. Second, moving $5.5 million to a 4% investment is a decent move, but on a $10 billion spend, it's a drop in the bucket. The real question is, what percentage of their total customer spend is being actively optimized by their treasury agent? And this is the part of the report that I find genuinely puzzling. Ramp's fraud agent blocking a single $49,000 fake invoice seems almost comically small given the volume of transactions they process. Is that it?
The "Thinking Money" Mirage
Eric Glyman, Ramp's co-founder and CEO, claims their underlying profitability is growing 153% year-over-year, which he says is 10x faster than the median publicly traded SaaS company. Revenue went from $500 million to over $1 billion in twelve months.
That 153% figure is massive. But it's important to note that they're measuring "underlying profitability" by contribution profit (which basically means revenue minus direct costs). It's a useful metric, but it doesn't account for all the overhead – the salaries, marketing expenses, and R&D that actually make the business run. So, while contribution profit might be skyrocketing, it doesn't necessarily mean the company as a whole is swimming in cash.
Glyman argues that "thinking money" automates the small stuff, allowing companies to run better. He claims the median Ramp customer saves 5% while growing revenue 12% year-over-year. Again, we need to be skeptical. The press release footnotes that these numbers are based on anonymized Ramp customer data from Q3 2025, comparing pre- and post-adoption performance across 50,000+ companies. But anonymized data is also unverified data. Were these customers already on an upward trajectory? Did they implement other changes alongside Ramp that contributed to the growth? Correlation doesn't equal causation.
The claim that revenue growth is more than double the national average for businesses in the U.S. is also misleading. The national average includes all businesses, from struggling mom-and-pop shops to established giants. Comparing Ramp's growth to that broad average is like comparing apples to a very large, diverse fruit basket.
The Road Ahead
Ramp has undoubtedly built a successful business. They've attracted significant investment and are serving a large customer base. But the $32 billion valuation feels…aspirational. A lot of the claims feel like marketing hype, and the underlying data needs to be scrutinized more closely.
The comparison to publicly traded SaaS companies growing at a much slower rate is perhaps the most telling. Public companies have to answer to shareholders and are subject to much greater transparency. Ramp, as a private company, can control the narrative to a greater extent.
The real test for Ramp will be whether they can maintain this growth trajectory as they scale further. Can they continue to deliver tangible value to their customers, or will the "thinking money" turn out to be just another buzzword?