Larry Diamond graduated from the University of Technology Sydney with a Bachelor of Information Technology in 2004. He had an idea for a credit line that lived in a phone and could be used at checkout, but he needed someone who understood consumer credit. He found Peter Gray.
The two met for about six months in a North Sydney hotel and sketched the plan on butcher paper. Zip was incorporated in June 2013 as zipMoney, backed by friends and family. The first customer, Chappelli Cycles, signed up in December 2013.
zipMoney listed on the ASX in September 2015. In 2017 it was renamed Zip Co and was onboarding about 1,200 customers a day. That year it secured a A$260 million debt facility, with A$200 million from NAB, and A$40 million of equity from Westpac.
Zip then grew by acquisition: Pocketbook in 2016, PartPay and SpotCap ANZ in 2019, and Quadpay in the US, bought outright for A$430 million in 2020. Spotii and Twisto followed in 2021. In 2022 Zip left Singapore and the UK and closed Pocketbook. Revenue for the year to 30 June 2025 was A$1.08 billion. In May 2026 the High Court upheld the Firstmac trademark ruling over the name Zip.