How Elephants went from zero to US$100M+ in card volume with Reap in 3 weeks

How Elephants went from zero to US$100M+ in card volume with Reap: a global program launched in three weeks

Elephants does everything a bank does, without being one. To launch a genuinely global card program, it needed a partner rather than a vendor, and it needed to move fast. Reap took Elephants' cards from zero to live in three weeks, and the two teams have been building together ever since.

At a glance

First card issued in 3 weeks, from signing to first payment, against an industry norm of 3 to 6 months
Zero to US$100M+ in total payment volume, and growing aggressively
70 markets from day one: able to launch everywhere at once, not one market at a time
Compliant global issuance: cards usable anywhere Visa is accepted
Reap was Elephants' first and only card partner

"Without Reap, none of it would have been possible. Cards isn't my main business now, but cards is the most important little key that unlocks the rest."

— Jon Low, Co-founder & CEO, Elephants

About Elephants

Jon Low is a career banker who has launched digital payment and credit card products around the world, from Australia to Europe to Asia, and even Mexico. Elephants is his response to a problem he'd seen everywhere: business payments that are far harder than they should be.

"We do everything a bank does, but we're not a bank. Everything from virtual accounts to cards to payouts," Jon says. The name is deliberate: "An elephant is a very large animal, and once they get moving, you really can't stop them."

Elephants runs both a business and a retail product. Businesses spend on subscriptions, cloud services like AWS, office rent and everyday expenses; retail customers receive their payroll and wages and spend on the things life requires. A card program built on Reap sits underneath both.

The challenge: launching in a needlessly complex industry

Having built card products his whole career, Jon knew exactly where the difficulty hid, and it wasn't the technology. "The hardest part of launching a cards program is actually just understanding how it all works," he says. Interchange, cost and revenue lines that shift by currency, by market, by threshold: "It's a needlessly complex industry, and if you don't really know your pricing or how to work with partners, it's extremely easy to lose sight of how much you're making."

There was a second problem. When Elephants was brand new, almost no one in the credit card space wanted to work with an early-stage company. "Everyone was doing some variation of gift cards, or co-branded cards, or prepaid cards, and that just wasn't the experience we were looking for. We wanted something that could give a credit-like experience." Most providers wouldn't look. Reap did.

Why Reap: a partner, not a vendor

What stood out, Jon says, was the combination Reap brought: "technology, know-how, and, probably more importantly, commercial nuance. They just get it. When you're trying to launch, you really want a partner as opposed to a vendor."

That showed up in the details. Rather than leave Elephants to reverse-engineer its own economics, Reap built them a pricing calculator and set clear expectations up front. "They told us exactly what it was going to be like. There were no surprises." Where terms were being negotiated, Reap explained what each one actually meant for the business. "I genuinely think Reap saw us as a partner to help grow, as opposed to just a vendor to milk and let the card program die."

For Jon, that reflects something the rest of the industry misses: "Reap truly understands that to succeed, you should be a business launcher, not a card launcher." Reap took the time to understand where Elephants was trying to go, and backed it from day one, when few others would. "Ever since then, it's been one plus one equals three."

Three weeks, not three to six months

Jon had launched cards before Reap, with other providers. Those programs took three to six months on average. With Reap, the picture was different.

"From signing with Reap, to getting the documents, to getting the entire integration done, to first payment, it literally took us three weeks," he says. "And honestly, a lot of that was on us; it could have been quicker." Knowing what he now knows about how Reap's infrastructure works, he reckons a team could get to market faster still.

A truly global program from day one

Most startups launch in one or two markets and expand later. Elephants didn't have to. "Being a startup, you'd normally launch in one to two markets, but now we can launch in 70 all at once," Jon says. "For Elephants to be able to run a truly global program from day one is limitless."

The reach comes with compliance built in. Elephants' cards work anywhere Visa is accepted, and Reap's issuing infrastructure lets Elephants launch in more markets, in compliance with local regulations, without operating in the gray areas Jon had seen elsewhere. "Not only do they enable this, they enable it in a very compliant way. That's one of the biggest reasons we went with Reap."

A normal Tuesday

The clearest sign the program works is how little Jon has to think about it. "The most interesting part of operating a card on Reap is that I interact with Reap very minimally," he says. "What happens every Tuesday is: my customers wake up, they use the card, it works, and that's it. That's kind of how you really want a card program to work."

When something does need attention, the Reap team is reachable. "I love how accessible everyone is," Jon says, pointing to 24/7 availability, an on-call team and real-time alerts. "The biggest safety net is: when things really go wrong, I know for a fact that all it takes is one call and someone will pick up."

It's why Elephants stays, even as other providers come knocking "almost every other week." "The biggest factor that keeps me with Reap is trust. Not just trust, but technology; the pricing is great; and the service just matters. Every other provider is hunting for leads, as opposed to looking for partnerships."

The results: from zero to US$100M+

Reap backed Elephants when its card volume was zero. It's now well past US$100 million in total payment volume, and growing aggressively. "They stuck with us when we were zero," Jon says. "I just don't think it would have been possible without strong partners."

Cards may not be Elephants' whole business, but Jon is clear about where they sit: "Cards is the most important little key that unlocks the rest."

What's next

Elephants' ambition runs well beyond cards. Its long-term vision is what Jon calls "employee zero," letting customers run their finances simply by chatting, or through their own AI agents. He expects Reap to be central to getting there, across products still to come: remittances, virtual accounts, and more. "You guys have supported us thus far, and we hope you'll be an integral partner in the future."

Asked what he'd tell a founder weighing whether to build on Reap, Jon doesn't hedge on the partner, only on the business: "Cards businesses are tough. But if you really want to run one, there's only one person in Asia you should talk to, and that's Reap."

"Without Reap, Elephants would be… more of a mouse."