JPMorgan’s bet on early-stage companies pays off in leading global tech investment banking

By Milana Vinn

NEW YORK, May 14 (Reuters) – When Pattern Group co-founders David Wright and Melanie Alder needed $10 million for their startup in 2017, it was barely a rounding error for a bank like JPMorgan, which held $2.5 trillion in assets at the time.

Yet the bank still flew a team to Lehi, Utah, to evaluate the e-commerce company in person.

“We were literally in a warehouse with some desks next to it,” Pattern CFO Jason Beesley said. “They came and visited us and weren’t spooked by that.”   

That hands-on approach paid off. As Pattern grew from $100 million in annual revenue to $2.5 billion last year, the company chose JPMorgan as the sole banker on its $225 million Series B in October 2021 and a $150 million revolving credit facility last year. The bank then co-led with Goldman Sachs’ Pattern’s IPO in September, which raised $300 million and valued the company at around $2.5 billion. Its shares are up 27% since the IPO, and Pattern expects to generate $3.3 billion in revenue this year.

“It’s very important for us to be able to say to our clients that ‘we’re going to be with you, no matter what your size is, and no matter what happens’,” said Andrew Kresse, the bank’s co-head of innovation economy. “We’re not looking for only companies that want an IPO.” 

TOP IN TECH BANKING

The Pattern relationship reflects JPMorgan’s broader strategy: build ties with companies early and grow alongside them. By leveraging its commercial bank for companies with under $2 billion in revenue, its global corporate banking unit for larger borrowers, and its wealth management and consumer divisions, JPMorgan was able to beat rival Goldman Sachs for the No. 1 spot in technology investment banking in the first quarter, according to Dealogic. That figure includes equity and debt underwriting, lending and M&A.

While Goldman held the top spot in tech M&A by total deal value, JPMorgan dominated in other areas giving it 16.7% of the market share in total tech investment banking fees during the first quarter, according to LSEG.  

“JPMorgan has a best-in-class global investment bank that layers capital markets, lending and all the frills that go along with it. They deliver the whole firm to their clients,” said Mike Mayo, head of U.S. large-cap bank research at Wells Fargo, adding that JPMorgan sits with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley among the industry’s three top investment banks. 

JPMorgan formalized this approach about a decade ago when it created its Innovation Economy banking group to target founder-led, high-growth, venture-backed startups in healthcare and tech earlier in their development. When Silicon Valley Bank — which had dominated startup banking — collapsed in 2023, JPMorgan moved quickly to capture its clients and recruit talent.

The bank has since expanded its technology investment banking team, hiring about a dozen senior bankers in 2025 and recruiting veteran dealmaker Kevin Brunner from Bank of America as global chairman of investment banking. JPMorgan is also bringing in Kaushik Banerjee and Homan Milani from Bank of America, who are set to join the firm as managing directors in the technology investment banking group later this year.

However, the team suffered a major setback last year when it lost its three global heads of technology banking in rapid succession: Madhu Namburi went to venture capital firm General Catalyst and Drago Rajkovic and Pankaj Goel both joined Citigroup. The company announced Wednesday a reshuffling at the top of the investment bank, promoting Dorothee Blessing, Kevin Foley and Jared Kaye to run global investment banking and former M&A head Anu Aiyengar to global chair of investment banking and M&A. 

And not all IPOs have gone as well as Pattern’s. As the lead bank in Circle Internet Group’s IPO, JPMorgan was criticized by some for leaving money on the table when the stablecoin issuer went public at $31 a share and soared as high as $95 on its June 5 trading debut. It was one of the first big IPOs following the Trump administration’s Liberation Day that sidelined new listings for weeks and investor appetite took the industry by surprise.

While Goldman was No. 1 in tech M&A by total deal value, JPMorgan dominated in other areas giving it 16.7% of the market share in total tech investment banking fees during the first quarter, according to LSEG.  

Today, JPMorgan has more than 550 bankers covering innovation economy clients globally — 200 of which were hired since 2023 — and works with over 11,000 startups and high-growth companies across 40 countries. Technology deals alone made up 22% of the bank’s $3.2 billion in overall fee revenue for the investment bank during the first quarter, the bank’s best performing sector, according to data compiled by LSEG. 

EMBEDDING EARLY

Embedding itself with startups early and expanding those relationships across lending, capital markets and advisory, the bank is betting it can capture a larger share of the biggest technology deals as those companies mature. 

DoorDash is one example of this strategy. JPMorgan began working with the local commerce platform nearly a decade ago when it was worth under $1 billion. The bank supported its growth, offering Chase cardholders complimentary or discounted DashPass memberships in 2020 before taking the company public later that year. It recently advised on DoorDash’s $3.9 billion acquisition of London-based Deliveroo.

“We are uniquely positioned to support a company from its early days into becoming one of the most significant tech companies in the ecosystem,” said John Simmons, co-head of global banking. DoorDash is now worth about $73 billion.

JPMorgan has also advised on several marquee tech deals in recent years, including Palo Alto Networks’ roughly $25 billion acquisition of CyberArk, Salesforce’s $8 billion purchase of Informatica, and Global Payments’ $24.25 billion acquisition of Worldpay alongside the $13.5 billion sale of its Issuer Solutions business to FIS. 

BUILDING TRUST

JPMorgan executives say the approach differs from traditional investment banking models that focus primarily on individual transactions. 

Cultivating relationships early allows the bank to “build the trust necessary to help clients navigate complex transactions,” said Noah Wintroub, global chairman of investment banking.

Matt Kuta, a former F-15E fighter pilot and co-founder of Voyager Technologies, met JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon at the annual Army-Navy football game in December 2024. The Denver-based space technology company was already a commercial banking client, and Kuta said they needed an investment bank. 

Dimon connected him to Simmons, who was instrumental in the bank’s work running Voyager’s $383 million IPO last year, which valued it at about $3.8 billion.

JPMorgan banker Kristina Nilsson helped land one of Voyager’s latest collaborations by introducing CEO Dylan Taylor to Matthew Kinsella, CEO of quantum technology company Infleqtion. The companies announced plans in November to integrate Infleqtion’s Tiqker atomic clock into low-Earth orbit missions aboard the International Space Station and Starlab, the commercial space station Voyager is helping develop.

Taylor said JPMorgan’s responsiveness and internal collaboration stood out, noting that Dimon occasionally emails him directly to check in.

“If I emailed Jamie right now … he probably wouldn’t respond within an hour, but he would respond later today,” Taylor said. “The fact that he even knows who I am is pretty unique.” 

(Reporting by Milana Vinn. Editing by Dawn Kopecki and Anna Driver)