Fintech – the burgeoning array of technologies that enable consumers and businesses to access, control, and understand their financial transactions, processes, and lives – has transformed the way we manage our money. It may seem like a recent (albeit increasingly ubiquitous) development, but fintech has its roots in the late 19th century, when telegraphs and transatlantic cables enabled financial information to be transferred across great distances and borders quickly and more efficiently. 

The sector as we know it today really took off in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, which compromised trust in traditional financial institutions and paved the way for development and widespread adoption of innovative, tech-driven solutions. Fintech helps financial institutions manage their backend and consumer-facing processes better, enhancing monitoring and customer service. It facilitates easier payments processing, accounting, and compliance for businesses. It enables consumers to manage their money on the go, apply for financial aid, and engage in peer-to-peer lending and trading with ease. 

Fintech is also greatly expanding financial inclusion. A UN Policy Brief found that it can reduce financial service costs by up to 90%, benefitting 1.6 billion low-income individuals and businesses in developing countries, mainly women. These new balances have the potential to create up to $2.1 trillion in capital for individuals and small businesses, while enhanced access to financial services could add $3.7 trillion to GDP and create 95 million jobs by 2025.

Although a 2022 market correction put a damper on its exponential growth, the fintech market is valued at more than $350 billion, with an estimated 30,000 startups operating around the world. 

‍The top fintech startups

In identifying the top 20 fintech startups, we identified a few key trends, including neobanks targeting underbanked segments with curated products to capture market share quickly, a number of companies attempting to expand globally through strategic partnerships or licenses, and growth in complementary offerings. The top fintech companies are split across multiple segments: 

• Fintech infrastructure: 4
• Decentralized finance: 3
• Neobanks: 3
• Buy now, pay later: 3
• Biometric payments: 2
• Retail trading infrastructure: 2
• Business expense management: 2
• Neo insurance: 1

Neobanks have attracted the most funding, around $45 billion, while median funding across the top 20 sits at roughly $38 million. Below we explore some standout players. 

EigenLayer

Founded in 2021, EigenLayer is working to make the Ethereum network, which underpins a host of decentralized finance advances, more efficient. It does so through a process called Ethereum re-staking, which allows users to re-delegate and re-stake tokens already being used to validate the Ethereum network across other blockchains, in exchange for protocol fees and rewards. By leveraging pooled security and free market dynamics, this addresses security inefficiencies within the network. It’s attracted $164 million in funding, the majority from a series B funding round in Q4 2024. 

Mondu

This buy now, pay later (BPNL) startup is targeting the B2B online payments space with solutions that aim to offer a standard up to par with their B2C counterparts. Mondu’s B2B commerce product offers BNPL checkout options for platforms, installments and multichannel sales, while its B2B marketplace enables merchants to split BNPL fees between buyers, add markups, and charge buyers for payment flexibility. Its real-time credit checks leverage intelligent risk management systems and fraud prevention capabilities to reduce the risk of payment defaults. This has attracted a lot of attention, with the company’s revenue growing 440% and client base growing 350% in 2023. It’s gained $122 million in funding so far, with the most recent round being directed towards expansion into the EU and development of additional payment solutions. 

PopID

Making payments more secure and convenient through biometrics, PopID aims to the universal gateway for user identification based on face and palm recognition. Combining the advanced algorithms of biometric authentication provider with its own proprietary technology, PopID is targeting the payments, loyalty program and access control spaces. It claims to save up to 90 seconds per transaction on ordering and checkout times, potentially increasing ticket size by 4%. PopID has recently entered into a partnership with J.P. Morgan Payments, piloting in-store biometric payments at selected retailers across the US, and has recently expanded into the Bahamas and Middle East. Although such solutions have taken off in China, they face resistance in the West from consumers and privacy advocates. Nevertheless, PopID has raised $15 million in total funding thus far. 

Karat Financial

Content creators have upended the entertainment industry, and Karat Financial is taking advantage of this by catering to the market with tailored credit cards and financial tools to serve their needs. The company takes a novel approach to underwriting, evaluating creditworthiness based on factors such as social reach, audience engagement, platform diversity, and monetization strategies that might have little meaning to traditional financial institutions. Karat started by offering business credit to creators, but found success when it pivoted to a credit card, providing higher limits and good rates to a market of potential high earners who are misunderstood by banks. It’s used those content creators, who share information with their considerable networks for a living, as a natural distribution channel. Audiences have taken notice, as have investors, who have thus far supplied $101 million in funding. 

Moss

This business expense management startup has attracted the greatest amount of funding among the top 20 – a hefty $203 million – on the back of its business expense cards, and non-card expense and business payout management platforms. Moss automates accounting and digitizes finance workflows, enabling small and medium-sized business in the EU to gain greater transparency and control over their company expenditures. Its big-picture goal is to help reduce manual accounting work to free up finance teams so they can in turn focus on their big-picture goals. Moss claims to improve finance team productivity by 47%, reduce errors by 80%, and accelerate employee reimbursement processes by 27%. So far it’s integrated with several platforms including QuickBooks, Xero, Sage 50, and SAP Business One, and doubled its business in 2023. 

Charlie

Digital banking has taken off massively among younger consumers, but adoption struggles among seniors have represented a common theme worldwide. Charlie aims to change that by catering exclusively to older consumers, offering demand deposit accounts (including a debit card), no monthly fees or minimums, and social security cash advances through a partnership with Sutton Bank. One of the major pain points the company is tackling is fraud, developing a suite of protection tools including the ability to get verified transactions texted to clients, spoof account avoidance, and SpeedBump, which pauses transactions for six hours whenever a new payee or a device is added to an account, or the account owner transfers more than $100 to someone else. Charlie has gained around 20,000 customers across the US, along with $31 million in funding. 

Vyzer

Founded in 2020, Vyzer is taking advantage of the colossal wealth transfer from baby boomers to their children, a trend that is creating a new generation of investors who need to become financially savvy quickly. It offers an all-in-one wealth management platform that aggregates data from more than 16,000 financial institutions, transforming this information into wealth-management strategies and granting users insights into their portfolios. It offers a single, holistic dashboard providing financial analysis, advanced planning, tracking, automated data management, insightful analytics, peer benchmarking, and forecasting. The company is drawing from its $6.3 million in funding to invest in the platform’s AI capabilities, develop new features, improve its professional services, and broaden its market reach. 

Stay on top of fintech startups and technology trends

It’s a constantly evolving space, with fintech companies jostling for market share while also attempting to deliver on the promises of financial inclusion and transparency. With so much happening, it can be difficult to understand the bigger picture while also identifying startups that are ripe for adoption, investment, or partnership. Market intelligence solutions, such as Speeda Edge, analyze vast quantities of startup information, making this accessible and drawing insights that can guide strategic decision-making. As the only market intelligence provider that validates all information on the platform and with a team of analysts on call to dig deeper into the data, Speeda Edge is uniquely positioned to help organizations ride the fintech wave. 

Conclusion

Despite some speed bumps along the way, fintech and fintech companies continue to grow in scope and market size, with a wealth of startups challenging incumbents and traditional approaches to improve security and efficiency, foster business growth, make financial management more transparent, and cater to underserved markets. 

Download the latest SPEEDA Edge report for an overview of the sector, and contact us for a personalized demo of how our services can help you make better, more informed decisions.