Valley National Bancorp, the parent of Valley Bank, said on September 28, 2026 that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire Bluevine, a Jersey City, New Jersey company that runs a nationwide digital banking platform for small businesses. Valley put the total consideration at about $340 million, subject to customary adjustments.
About 75% of the price will be paid in cash and the remaining 25% in Valley common stock. The companies expect the deal to close in early 2027, once regulatory approvals and other customary conditions are met.
Bluevine co-founder and chief executive Eyal Lifshitz will become Valley's Head of Small Business Banking after closing. Valley said Bluevine's engineering and product staff, around 180 people working mainly from Redwood City, Jersey City, Salt Lake City and Tel Aviv, would support its technology plans.
What Bluevine built
Founded in 2013, Bluevine offers small businesses online checking, payments, lending and financial management tools. Valley said the company had about 175,000 active small-business customers as of June 2026 and had served more than 415,000 businesses since it started.
The platform holds about $2.1 billion in deposits that Valley described as low cost and digitally sourced. According to the release, deposits generated on the platform grew at a compound annual rate of roughly 35% from 2023 through the second quarter of 2026, and about 99% of them come from customers who do not borrow from Bluevine.
Banking Dive reported that Bluevine has spent almost $200 million on its digital customer acquisition platform and that opening an account takes about five minutes. Those deposits currently sit at partner bank Coastal Community Bank and are due to move to Valley in the first half of 2027, the publication said.
“The acquisition of Bluevine directly advances the strategic priorities we have previously communicated to our shareholders.”
Why Valley is buying
Valley, which has about $66 billion in assets according to Banking Dive, framed the purchase around three priorities it had already set out to shareholders: a stronger funding base, a larger small-business franchise and a faster push into digital and AI. The bank said Bluevine adds a national digital channel for winning customers to its branch and relationship-led model.
Cheaper funding is a large part of the case. An investor presentation cited by Banking Dive put Bluevine's cost of deposits at 1.44%, against 2.28% for Valley, and the bank expects the new deposits to reduce its use of more expensive wholesale funding. Banking Dive also reported that roughly 40% of Bluevine's customers are inside Valley's existing footprint, which the bank sees as a chance to sell treasury management and wealth services.
Valley expects the deal, including synergies, to add about 8% to estimated 2028 earnings per share. It forecast about 5% dilution to tangible book value at closing, earned back in roughly three years. Executives told analysts that most of Bluevine's code is written with AI and that AI resolves about 80% of inbound customer questions, Banking Dive reported.
The founders and the funding
Bluevine was started by Israeli entrepreneurs Eyal Lifshitz and Nir Klar, according to Calcalist. The Israeli business daily reported that the company had raised about $290 million in equity, alongside credit lines and debt facilities of around $770 million in total, and that its last major round, a Series F in late 2019, valued it at roughly $700 million to $800 million.
On those figures, the $340 million sale price is well below the company's last reported private valuation. Valley's release did not name Bluevine's investors or discuss its funding history.
“The acquisition of Bluevine directly advances the strategic priorities we have previously communicated to our shareholders,” said Ira Robbins, Valley's chairman, president and chief executive. Lifshitz said in the same release that the team looked forward to joining Valley and continuing to improve its small-business banking platform.
Valley's second deal in two months
The Bluevine agreement came about two months after Valley agreed in August to buy Providence Financial Corp., of South Holland, Illinois, for $247 million, Banking Dive reported. Robbins said the bank did not plan further acquisitions for the foreseeable future.
J.P. Morgan analyst Anthony Elian wrote that, given the modest size of both transactions, neither was likely to disrupt Valley's organic growth, according to Banking Dive.
Cantor Fitzgerald advised Valley on the deal, with Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz as legal counsel. Financial Technology Partners was Bluevine's exclusive financial adviser and Sidley Austin its legal counsel.
