Zūm Rails Hits $10M ARR—All Without VC Funding

We’re celebrating a major milestone: Zūm Rails, the open-banking payments platform based in Canada, has reached over $10 million in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)—and did it entirely through bootstrapped growth, with no venture capital. This remarkable achievement was spotlighted in the Practical Founders blog by Greg Head. Practical Founders

Why It’s a Big Deal

• Bootstrapped Success
  In just over three years, the three co-founders turned a niche idea into a fast-growing fintech company with 40 employees, all while staying lean and focused on their customers. Practical Founders

• Foot on the Gas, Every Month
  The team continues to close major deals each month, expanding with strategic partners and steadily increasing momentum—including a successful growth trajectory into the U.S. market. Practical Founders

• Scaling Isn’t Easy
  As revenue climbs, so does the pressure. Co-founder Miles Schwartz shares:

  “When we first started, we had a runway of seven weeks... as we scale past $10M ARR, we still have the same pressure, but with larger numbers... It’s a slog… it’s grinding teeth… it’s tough.” Practical Founders

• Full Control, Tough Choices
  Zūm Rails continues to weigh the trade-offs of raising growth capital—but for now, they’re choosing autonomy, carefully selecting which challenges to tackle and which risks to manage. Practical Founders

Zūm Rails is a living testament to what focused execution and customer-first thinking can achieve—building a $10M+ business under the most challenging, capital-efficient conditions. Their journey is both inspiring and brutally honest about the cost of growth.

You can read the full story on Practical Founders: The New Challenges of a Bootstrapped Founder of a $10M+ ARR SaaS Company Practical Founders