Tagged: financial-inclusion
14 results
First Access
First Access is a New York-based fintech company that gives lenders in emerging markets a configurable software platform to originate loans and make credit decisions. Founded in 2011, it began by scoring the creditworthiness of people outside the formal financial system using mobile phone and alternative data, then grew into a full loan-origination and decision-engine platform that lets microfinance institutions and small-business lenders digitize operations, launch custom credit applications in roughly two weeks, and automate underwriting while keeping room for human judgment.
Hapi
Hapi is a Peruvian-founded, YC-backed fintech that lets people across Latin America invest in U.S. stocks, ETFs and cryptocurrencies from their phones - with zero commissions, no minimums and an account you can open in about five minutes. Built to knock down the high fees and paperwork that historically kept Latin Americans out of the U.S. markets, Hapi has grown from 10,000 users in 2022 to a reported 500,000-plus clients across roughly 20 countries.
Ola Guild Games
Ola Guild Games (OLA GG) is the largest Web3 gaming community in the Spanish-speaking world, operating as a regional subDAO of Yield Guild Games. Founded by lifelong Hispanic gamers, it onboards players across Latin America and Spain into blockchain games through NFT scholarships, Web3 education, and a shared-rewards model that lets people play and earn without upfront cost. In 2022 it raised $8 million in seed funding from investors including Galaxy Interactive, BITKRAFT, and Arca.
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.
Hussein Fazal
Hussein Fazal is the Co-Founder and CEO of Super.com, a financial super app serving everyday Americans with savings, credit building, travel bookings, and cashback rewards. Previously, he co-founded AdParlor, a Facebook ad optimization platform acquired by AdKnowledge in 2011 after scaling to $100M+ in revenue. At Super.com (formerly SnapTravel), he has grown the platform to 30+ million users and $200M+ ARR, raising over $261M in total venture funding, with backing from Steph Curry, Harley Finkelstein, and institutional investors including iNovia Capital and Lion Capital.
Manuel Godoy
Manuel Godoy is the Co-Founder and CEO of Félix, a WhatsApp-native remittance platform that uses USDC stablecoins and AI to let Latino immigrants send money home in minutes for a fraction of traditional costs. Born in Venezuela and educated at Caltech and Wharton, Godoy turned his own immigrant experience into a company that has processed over $1 billion in remittances, serves 400,000+ active users across nine countries, and raised $90.5M including a $75M Series B in April 2025 led by QED Investors.
Kristy Kim
Kristy Kim is the Co-founder and CEO of TomoCredit, a San Francisco-based fintech company that uses AI and alternative data to help credit-invisible Americans — immigrants, international students, and young adults — build credit without a traditional FICO score. A Korean immigrant who moved to the U.S. at age 11, Kim was denied auto loans five times despite earning a six-figure investment banking salary after graduating from UC Berkeley, simply because she had no U.S. credit history. That personal experience became the seed of TomoCredit, which has raised over $46.5M in venture funding (backed by Mastercard and Morgan Stanley), serves 4+ million customers, and generates $20M+ in annual revenue. Kim now leads the company's expansion into AI-powered financial wellness with the launch of TomoIQ.
Lesley Marincola
Lesley Silverthorn Marincola is the founder and CEO of Angaza, a San Francisco-based B2B software company that powers pay-as-you-go financing for solar home systems and other off-grid products across emerging markets. A Stanford-trained product designer and mechanical engineer, she launched Angaza in 2010 after a course called 'Designing for Extreme Poverty' lit a fire she hasn't put out since. Today, Angaza's platform reaches over 5 million people across 50 countries, enabling low-income households to pay for life-changing energy products through weekly micropayments via mobile money — replacing kerosene lamps one $1 payment at a time. Her work earned Angaza the 2018 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship and a TED stage appearance. She is a Forbes '30 Under 30' alum, Echoing Green Fellow, and World Economic Forum Young Global Shaper.
Stuart Sopp
Stuart Sopp is the British-born CEO and co-founder of Current, one of America's largest New York-based fintech platforms serving nearly 4 million consumers. A former FX and rates trader who spent 15 years at BNY Mellon, Deutsche Bank, Citi, and Morgan Stanley across four continents, he walked away from Wall Street in 2014 after a CTO-to-be handed him the Bitcoin whitepaper and asked him to reconsider who banking was actually for. Current — built on a proprietary core banking stack, backed by Andreessen Horowitz and Tiger Global at a $2.2B valuation — targets Americans with sub-620 FICO scores who have been systematically underserved by traditional banks. Sopp aims for IPO readiness by 2026-2027.
Nik Milanović
Nik Milanović is the founder of This Week in Fintech (TWIF), the 200,000+ subscriber global fintech newsletter and community he built from a zero-subscriber internal team email in 2019 and sold to Plaid in March 2026. He is also General Partner of The Fintech Fund, a $10M pre-seed/seed fintech fund backed by 120 operators and founders, and founder of Stablecon, which became the world's leading stablecoin conference within its first year. A Stanford philosophy graduate with deep roots in financial inclusion research, Nik has organized fintech community events in 84 cities across 6 continents and connected tens of thousands of fintech professionals worldwide.
Shahzad Shahid
Shahzad Shahid is the Group CEO of TPS Worldwide, a Pakistan-headquartered global payments technology company serving 100+ clients across 30+ countries. Starting as a software engineer at TPS in 1999, he rose through roles in regional business development, global marketing, and the C-suite to become CEO in 2014. Under his leadership, TPS has expanded into Saudi Arabia and across the Middle East, Africa, and Europe, underpinned key Pakistani financial infrastructure projects like 1LINK and NIFT ePay, and partnered with sustainability-focused fintechs. He is also a former Chairman of P@SHA (Pakistan Software Houses Association) and an active voice on digital economic policy.
Asif Jafri
Asif Jafri is the Founder and CEO of Kistpay, a Shariah-compliant smartphone and laptop financing platform bridging the digital divide across Pakistan, Bangladesh, Mexico, Thailand, Africa, and the UAE. With 27+ years of combined corporate and entrepreneurial experience spanning banking, telecoms, and consumer goods, he has built Kistpay into a globally recognized venture - winning the IsDB Pitch Competition 2024, earning GSMA Top 10 finalist status, and speaking alongside world leaders at the World Bank Global Digital Summit. His mission: connect the next billion people to the internet through affordable device financing, with a particular focus on women's economic empowerment.
Ahmad Ajmal
Ahmad Ajmal is a Toronto-based fintech entrepreneur with an MBA and Master of Finance from the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management. He is a founder and operator at Upfinity Inc., an AI-driven platform that helps startup founders transform ideas into operating businesses. With roots in corporate banking and a strong foundation in programming, Ahmad bridges the gap between traditional finance and modern technology - his team at Rotman was recognized as one of the top 3 for solving the Financial Inclusion Problem using machine learning, and Upfinity has since grown to over 11,000 users through organic growth alone.
Deniz A. Johnson
COO of Stratyfy, adjunct faculty at Northeastern University, and one of the most credible voices in the fight against algorithmic discrimination in financial services. Born in Istanbul, educated in engineering and business, Deniz has spent decades bridging the gap between AI technology and human consequences — building interpretable, bias-mitigating AI systems used by 20+ lenders through the Underwriting for Racial Justice programme. She is a serial board member, community convener, and published author who believes fairness and performance are not opposites but the same equation solved correctly.