William Hockey is an American entrepreneur and angel investor best known as the co-founder and former CTO of Plaid, the financial data infrastructure company that connects bank accounts to third-party applications. He co-founded Plaid in 2013 alongside Zach Perret, helping build it into one of the most widely used fintech infrastructure layers in the United States, powering apps like Venmo, Robinhood, and Coinbase. Plaid reached a peak valuation of roughly $13.5 billion following a 2021 funding round, after the U.S. Department of Justice blocked a planned $5.3 billion acquisition by Visa.
After departing Plaid around 2020, Hockey shifted focus toward building and backing infrastructure-first companies at the intersection of finance and technology. In 2021, he co-founded Column alongside his wife Annie Hockey – a nationally chartered bank built specifically for developers and fintech companies. Column holds an OCC national bank charter, giving it capabilities that most fintech infrastructure providers lack. It raised capital from investors including Stripe's founders and others in the Silicon Valley fintech ecosystem. Column positions itself as a programmable bank, offering direct API access to core banking rails.
Notable investments
As an angel investor, Hockey maintains a selective portfolio with approximately five known investments. His focus areas align with his operational background: financial infrastructure, developer tooling, and payment rails. Specific portfolio company names have not been broadly disclosed in public sources. Public information about the individual deals – ticket sizes, co-investors, and valuations – is limited.
Team
Hockey is an individual angel investor, not a fund manager. He does not lead a formal investment firm or partnership. His investment activity runs alongside his operating role at Column. His wife and Column co-founder Annie Hockey has a background in financial services and policy. There is no named investment team separate from his personal activity.
Recent activity
Between 2024 and 2026, Hockey's most visible work has centered on scaling Column's bank-as-infrastructure model. Column has attracted fintech startups looking for a direct path to ACH, wire, and card issuing without a middleware sponsor bank. Hockey has spoken publicly about the fragility of traditional banking infrastructure and the opportunity for developer-native banks to replace legacy sponsor bank arrangements. His angel investing during this period appears to follow the same thesis – backing teams building closer to the financial rails rather than on top of them.
With a background that includes building one of the defining fintech data companies of the 2010s and then founding a chartered national bank, Hockey occupies a rare position in the startup ecosystem. His angel bets carry credibility for founders building in regulated financial infrastructure. That said, his disclosed portfolio remains small, and the full scope of his investment activity is not publicly documented. Founders seeking his backing typically come through his direct network rather than through open application processes.