# Jose Bethancourt

> Jose Bethancourt is the co-founder and CEO of Method Financial, an API platform that lets fintechs and lenders connect to and manage consumers' liability accounts - credit cards, student loans, auto loans and mortgages - using only a phone number. Raised near the Texas-Mexico border in one of the poorest counties in the U.S., he studied computer science and business at UT Austin, co-founded the student-loan startup GradJoy through Y Combinator's Summer 2019 batch, then pivoted the team's account-connectivity frustrations into Method in 2021. Method now serves more than 80 fintech clients including SoFi, Robinhood and Credit Karma, has processed over $500 million in payments, and raised a $41.5M Series B in January 2025 led by Emergence Capital. Bethancourt was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Finance list in 2026.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CEO at Method Financial
- **Organizations:** Method Financial, GradJoy, TeacherTalent, Y Combinator (S19)
- **From:** Rio Grande Valley, Texas, United States
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** Computer Science and Business, University of Texas at Austin
- **Known for:** Co-founded and leads Method Financial, serving 80+ fintech clients including SoFi, Robinhood, Credit Karma, Upstart and Aven, Named to Forbes 30 Under 30, Finance (2026), Raised approximately $60-62M in total funding across Method, at a reported ~$250M valuation

## Career timeline

- **2017** — Co-founded TeacherTalent (Techstars Kansas City 2017), leading engineering
- **2018** — TeacherTalent acquired in fall 2018 - his first exit
- **2019** — Co-founded GradJoy, a student-loan robo-advisor accepted into Y Combinator's Summer 2019 batch; turned down a role at Cloudflare to join
- **2021** — Co-founded Method Financial with Marco del Carmen after hitting account-connectivity limits at GradJoy
- **2022** — Method pivoted from a consumer app to a B2B financial-connectivity API
- **2025** — Method raised a $41.5M Series B led by Emergence Capital
- **2026** — Named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Finance list

## Achievements

- Co-founded and leads Method Financial, serving 80+ fintech clients including SoFi, Robinhood, Credit Karma, Upstart and Aven
- Named to Forbes 30 Under 30, Finance (2026)
- Raised approximately $60-62M in total funding across Method, at a reported ~$250M valuation
- Method has powered 30 million password-less account connections and over $500M in payments for nearly 4 million Americans
- 2x founder with one exit (TeacherTalent, acquired 2018)
- Backed by Y Combinator, Andreessen Horowitz, Emergence Capital, Samsung and Truist

## Latest updates

- **2026-06** — Featured on the Leaders in Payments Podcast (Episode 498) discussing the financial connectivity layer and why liability payments are uniquely messy.
- **2026-01** — Named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Finance list.
- **2025-01** — Method announced a $41.5M Series B led by Emergence Capital, bringing total funding to roughly $60M.

## Links

- Website: https://methodfi.com
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/josebethancourt
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/josebet1
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLejercRrbg

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/jose-bethancourt
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-07-16