The CEO of $1.9 billion Marqeta says it's looking to boost its headcount by 20% and is eyeing smaller startups to buy

And across its on-demand delivery clients, Marqeta has seen payments volumes triple in the last two months. 

"They've become absolutely essential services, and Marqeta has become essential infrastructure," Jason Gardner, founder and CEO of Marqeta told Business Insider.

And Marqeta has hired 50 people entirely remotely since the coronavirus lockdown began in March. Currently, with about 420 employees, the fintech plans to grow to 500 people by the end of this year.

The fintech was last valued at $1.9 billion following its $260 million Series E last May.

And while Marqeta is keeping its eye out for possible acquisitions, Gardner says they're not looking to raise cash anytime soon.

"We have years of cash in the bank," said Gardner. "If we decided we're going to do it, it's because we want to use that capital to build faster."

Founded in 2010, Marqeta has raised $378 million to date from investors including Coatue Management, Goldman Sachs, and Visa.

Read more: 2 investors at legendary VC firm Andreessen Horowitz predict the new ways we'll shop and pay, from livestreaming e-commerce to contactless transactions

Marqeta has seen record volumes

As early as February, Marqeta started to see spikes in on-demand delivery volumes, Gardner said. 

And as the coronavirus pandemic continued to spread and more cities issued shelter-in-place orders, Marqeta started preparing for increased demand in delivery services.

"We made sure all the way down to our plastics vendors that they had enough raw material on hand," said Gardner.

"Instacart and DoorDash have been pretty open about the hundreds of thousands of workers that are going to be hiring," Gardner said. And that meant that Marqeta would see a surge in the use of its card-issuing product.

March and April were both record months for Marqeta in terms of volume, Gardner said. And across all its clients, Marqeta has seen a 75% increase in digital card usage with Apple Pay and Google Pay.

And Square's peer-to-peer payments product Cash App, whose card product is also powered by Marqeta, also saw a surge in use as it launched a product for its users to receive government stimulus payments.

As the business grows, Marqeta has continued hiring, albeit remotely

While hiring in Silicon Valley has historically been very competitive, the dynamics have shifted with more people now looking for work.

In the last two months, Marqeta has hired 50 people entirely remotely, and in April it saw 43% more job applications than in February.

"There's quite a lot of talent that's become available, especially in the payments space, and we're taking advantage of it," Gardner said. 

Payments fintechs like GoCardless and Flywire, for example, have both laid-off employees as the coronavirus pandemic puts pressure on their businesses.

Marqeta currently has over 30 open roles, and much of its hiring is coming through its network of customers and colleagues across Silicon Valley, Gardner said. 

"We're doing very well in this environment versus many of our friends and some of our customers who are not," said Gardner. "We've been in touch with those companies to create soft landings for some of their folks who have left, and have been reaching out and trying to help people in the Bay Area who have gotten laid off."

Much of Marqeta's hiring is focused on technical roles like software engineers, but it's also hiring product managers, as well as business development and marketing professionals.

"There's a push to hire in more technical engineering roles," said Gardner. "It's frankly always been that. Like any good product-driven company, we invest heavily in technical resources."

Gardner expects a wave of consolidation in fintech

Marqeta, which built out a corporate development team last year, is keeping its eyes out for possible acquisition targets.

"We keep an eye on a number of companies in our space that we believe could be accretive to us from a technology perspective," said Gardner.

He said that for younger startups without existing investor relationships, finding funding from remote working conditions could prove challenging, and many of them could find themselves acquisition targets.

"We're going to see a shakeout in seed and series A companies," said Gardner. 

Amid coronavirus-related uncertainty in the markets, US venture capital deals have slowed in the first quarter this year, especially among early-stage startups (seed and Series A), according to CB Insights.

"What's interesting is that we've always seen VCs following the public markets," said Gardner.

When there's a drop in the stock market, VCs pull back, Gardner added. But that doesn't mean that VCs don't have cash to invest. 

"There's more money now sitting on the sidelines than there ever was since the post-2008 crisis," said Gardner.

And while the total number of deals are down, the amount of funding in the first quarter this year rose 14% since last quarter. But much of that funding has been going to more established startups with existing investors extending later-stage rounds. 

In February, restaurant payments startup Toast raised $400 million and challenger bank Revolut raised $500 million. And this trend has extended into the second quarter, with the $36 billion fintech Stripe adding $600 million to its series G in April.

Read more: 4 top VCs explain why Stripe, Square, and Finix are going to be big winners in a post-COVID-19 world

Working in fintech may never be the same, with new office setups and different perks

In a competitive job market, tech employers have previously relied on office perks like catered lunches and dry-cleaning services to attract talent. But that's all changing in work from home conditions.

"I do think it's going to change," said Gardner. "We're going to find new perks to attract attention."

Especially now, companies have to find ways to create community among their employees, whether that be virtual events like video happy hours or guest speakers. 

And eventually, when people return to the office, it will look different.

"What we're thinking about ourselves is how are we going to lay out the office," said Gardner.

Marqeta is installing plexiglass at the front desk, and Gardner is also thinking about whether they'll need to install similar barriers between desks.

Historically, Marqeta has had an in-office culture, Gardner said, with the majority of its employees coming into its Oakland headquarters daily. But coming out of the pandemic, there may be employees who prefer to come in only a few times a week, Gardner said. 

So like many companies, Marqeta is figuring out ways to establish a balance between returning to the office and adapting to new flexible work arrangements.