Tagged: embedded-finance
15 results
Accrue
Accrue is a New York fintech that powers modern customer loyalty at the payment layer. Its brandable, stored-value digital wallet lets merchants take control of their payments and refunds, reward repeat customers, and reduce reliance on traditional card networks. Founded in 2021 by Michael Hershfield as a 'save now, buy later' alternative to BNPL, the company has expanded into a full-stack wallet, reward engine, pay-by-bank payments and closed-loop refunds used to lift order value and shopper frequency.
Agora Financial Technologies
Agora Financial Technologies (formerly Agora Services) is a New York-based banking-as-a-service and embedded-fintech provider that lets community banks and credit unions launch modern digital banking products without ripping out their legacy core. Its core-agnostic, cloud-native platform ships white-label mobile apps, card programs, and API access for niche segments like teens, families, gig workers, SMBs, and seniors - typically in weeks rather than the multi-year timelines of traditional core replacements. Founded in 2018 by fintech veteran Arcady Lapiro, the company positions itself as a way for smaller financial institutions to compete with challenger banks on cost and speed.
Spinwheel
Spinwheel is an Oakland-based fintech that provides real-time consumer credit data and embedded-payments infrastructure through developer APIs. Using a credentialless approach that needs only a phone number and date of birth, Spinwheel lets lenders, personal-finance apps, and debt-management companies connect, verify, and act on a consumer's debts and liabilities. The platform supports the full consumer-credit lifecycle - from segmentation and prequalification to disbursement, management, and payment - and, as of its 2025 Series A, powers more than 15 million users and 165 million connected accounts representing over $1.5 trillion in connected debt.
Shawn Melamed
Shawn Melamed is the co-founder and CEO of Spiral, a New York fintech that plugs charitable giving into the banking apps of credit unions and community banks. Before Spiral he ran Morgan Stanley's Technology Business Development and Innovation Offices and built two prior fintech companies, StrikeNET (sold to TMX Group) and Correlix. He was named one of The Financial Technology Report's Top 50 Fintech CEOs of 2024.
Increase
Increase is a banking infrastructure company that gives technology companies a programmatic way to store, move, and reconcile money. Through a single set of APIs it exposes the core U.S. payment rails - ACH, wires, real-time payments, FedNow, checks, and cards - with direct network connections and transparent access to the underlying data. Founded in 2020 by Stripe's first employee Darragh Buckley and based in Bend, Oregon, Increase is self-funded, became profitable in 2025, and processes hundreds of billions of dollars in payments each year for fintechs like Ramp, Check, and Pipe.
Jordan Mackler
Jordan Mackler is the CEO and Co-Founder of ScribeUp, an AI-powered embedded subscription management platform helping banks and credit unions give their members full visibility and control over recurring bills. A University of Michigan and MIT MBA graduate who left his MBA program mid-stream to build ScribeUp, Mackler has grown the company from idea to a $3M seed-backed fintech with partnerships across a growing network of credit unions - turning the mundane problem of mystery subscription charges into a strategic retention weapon for financial institutions.
Khalid Kabeer
Khalid Kabeer is a fintech and financial-inclusion executive with more than two decades of leadership in microfinance and MSME lending across Pakistan, the Middle East, Europe and Africa. A Fellow Chartered Accountant who started in audit and textiles, he helped build Kashf Microfinance Bank as its first CFO, ran global operations and then led Vitas Group as CEO, steering it toward a data-centric, digital-first lending model and founding its early-stage fintech investment arm, Vitas Ventures. He is now Chief Product Officer at AdalFi, a Lahore-based credit-scoring and lending-technology company taking instant, pre-approved digital credit to scale.
Jason Mikula
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.
Alpaca
Alpaca is a developer-first brokerage infrastructure company providing APIs and a self-clearing custody platform that lets fintechs, banks and trading apps embed access to US stocks, options, crypto and fixed income for customers in 40+ countries. Often called the AWS of finance, it powers more than 300 financial institutions and millions of brokerage accounts globally.
Lead Bank
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 Reses
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.
Tony Cueva Bravo
Tony Cueva Bravo is a Venture Partner at Hustle Fund, angel investor, and the founder of Emerging Fintech - a weekly newsletter and podcast covering frontier fintech across Latin America, Asia, and Africa. A Peruvian-born engineer who earned his MS in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Tony has lived and worked across three continents, driven 50% MoM growth at Rebill (the Stripe of LatAm), won dual startup competitions in Peru and Chile, and built a reputation as one of the sharpest fintech voices in emerging markets. He invests at the pre-seed stage and serves as a fractional operator for early-stage founders who need a thought partner to unlock growth bottlenecks.
Sheel Mohnot
Sheel Mohnot is a San Francisco-based fintech investor and co-founder of Better Tomorrow Ventures (BTV), a $300M+ seed-stage fund backing fintech companies globally. A two-time fintech founder himself - having built and exited FeeFighters (acquired by Groupon, 2012) and Innovative Auctions - Sheel brings rare operator credibility to early-stage investing. He co-founded The Pitch podcast, co-leads BTV's The Mint accelerator, and is one of fintech's most-followed voices on Twitter/X with 150K+ followers. Known for his fintech-only thesis, global portfolio (33% outside US), and a Taco Bell metaverse wedding officiated by Kal Penn.
Matt Harris
Matt Harris is a Partner at Bain Capital Ventures and one of the most tenured fintech-focused venture investors in the world, with over 30 years dedicated exclusively to financial technology. Known for his 'Fintech: The Fourth Platform' thesis that predicted fintech would create $3.6 trillion in value, Harris backed breakout companies including OnDeck Capital (as first investor), Flywire, Justworks, and GoCardless. He serves on the Innovation Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and ranks #3 on Institutional Investor's Fintech Finance 40.
Unit
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.