Raisin is a Berlin-based fintech that runs a pan-European and US savings and investment marketplace, letting retail customers shop competitive interest rates across hundreds of partner banks from a single account, while giving banks an on-demand channel to gather deposits. Beyond its consumer marketplace, Raisin licenses white-label 'savings-as-a-service' technology to financial institutions and offers ETF, pension and investment products. The company surpassed one million customers, turned profitable in 2022 after a decade of operation, and intermediates tens of billions of euros in deposits across more than 30 markets.
Alastair Wood is the CEO of Raisin US, the American arm of the Berlin-born deposit-marketplace fintech. A lawyer by training who started as the company's General Counsel in 2023, he stepped into the top job in January 2026. His career runs through Big Law (Paul Hastings, Paul Weiss), a chief-of-staff stint inside Citi's global legal team, and early-employee roles at two scrappy fintech startups - retirement platform Kindur and renter-insurance company Rhino - before he landed at Raisin, where he now leads a platform that connects everyday American savers with banks and credit unions chasing deposits.
Jason Mikula is the publisher of Fintech Business Weekly, an independent newsletter that reaches more than 90,000 subscribers with critical, no-favors analysis of banking, fintech, and crypto. After more than a decade scaling consumer lending businesses at Enova, LendUp, and Goldman Sachs, he became one of the most-cited independent voices on Banking-as-a-Service and fintech regulation, writing the award-winning book on BaaS and co-hosting the Fintech Business Podcast. He works from outside Amsterdam, covering the U.S. fintech-banking ecosystem from across an ocean.
Lead Bank is a state-chartered, FDIC-insured commercial bank turned API-first Banking-as-a-Service platform. Acquired in 2022 by an investor group led by former Square Capital chief Jackie Reses, the 1928-vintage Missouri community bank now provides regulated banking infrastructure - payments, card issuing, lending, and deposit accounts - to fintechs, consumer brands, and digital-asset companies.
Jacqueline 'Jackie' Reses is the Chair and CEO of Lead Bank, a Kansas City-based chartered bank she acquired in 2022 and transformed into a banking-as-a-service powerhouse serving fintech builders. Previously, she built Square Capital from zero into a multi-billion dollar lending business at Square (now Block), served as a board member at Alibaba through its historic 2014 IPO, led 41 transactions as Yahoo's Chief Development Officer, and spent seven years at Goldman Sachs in M&A. A Wharton-trained economist from Atlantic City, she co-authored 'Self-Made Boss' and holds patents in payments, credit, and cryptocurrency. Lead Bank closed a $70M Series B in September 2025 at a $1.47B valuation backed by a16z, Ribbit Capital, Coatue, and Khosla Ventures.
Unit is an embedded finance platform that lets software companies add bank accounts, cards, payments, and capital to their products via API — without becoming a bank. Founded in 2019 by Israeli entrepreneurs Itai Damti and Doron Somech, Unit reached unicorn status in 2022 at a $1.2B valuation, becoming the first BaaS provider to hit that milestone. The company processes $80B+ in annual transactions and serves 2M+ end-customers across 140+ software platforms, from workforce management apps to real estate marketplaces.