The 18 companies making their debut on our tenth annual Fintech 50 list show that despite a slow funding market, entrepreneurs are continuing to innovate at a rapid pace. The Payments category claimed the most first-timers, with six. DailyPay, led by former marketing executive Stacy Greiner, who became CEO last year, lets employees access their wages right after they’ve earned them. The 10-year-old company counts more than 1,000 businesses, including Hilton and Kroger, as customers, and last year it expanded to become available to more than five million employees. San Francisco-based Highnote, another newcomer, makes software that lets businesses issue customizable debit and credit cards, and it more recently launched a product that helps businesses accept online credit and debit payments, putting it in competition with companies like Stripe. It raised $90 million in new funding at a valuation of more than $750 million in January 2025. Squire, a New York company led by former lawyer Songe LaRon, helps barbershops do everything from schedule appointments to accept payments; last year it processed $740 million in transactions, up from $590 million in 2023.

In our Business to Business Banking category, which had three-first timers, Arc is a commercial bank specializing in private credit. It has a lending platform that uses AI to convert raw data into credit metrics and provides cash management and treasury products to businesses. In 2024, it processed $4 billion in loan applications and more than doubled its cash management account customers to 2,500. Parafin is a small business lender founded by three former Robinhood data scientists. It uses data from marketplaces like Walmart, DoorDash and Amazon to underwrite loans, instead of relying on credit scores or personal guarantees from the owners. In 2024, Parafin reached 25,000 borrowers, and its revenue more than doubled to $75 million.

Our Wall Street and Enterprise category also had three companies making their debut on the Fintech 50. Brico, founded by former consultant and fintech product manager Snigdha Kumar, helps fintechs and other nonbank financial players automate the cumbersome state-by-state licensing process and other regulatory requirements. It has landed customers like card issuer Marqeta and Bilt, a consumer credit card startup that also made its debut on our list this year (in the personal finance category). Another first-timer, fraud prevention firm DataVisor, was cofounded by Chinese immigrants Yinglian Xie and Fang Yu, both with U.S. PhDs in computer science. It uses patented machine learning algorithms to flag fraudulent payments and grew its revenue 67% in 2024, reaching $50 million. Zip makes software that organizes and orchestrates the complex processes of procurement, visualizing the steps necessary for a business to complete a purchase. Just four years after its founding, Zip reached a $2.2 billion valuation last fall, and its customers include OpenAI, Snowflake and Prudential.

Real estate was our smallest category on the list this year, with just two companies making the cut overall. Yet even with high interest rates creating a tough environment for real estate, one was a first-timer. Newcomer Aven issues home equity lines of credit (HELOCs) that can be tapped via a credit card. With consumers’ homes as collateral, the company’s cards offer a lower interest rate than on normal, unsecured credit cards, while its data and tech shrink the normal HELOC approval time. The billion-dollar company launched in 2020 after CEO Sadi Khan spent 18 months developing the product. It has more than 30,000 customers and hit $200 million in revenue on an annualized basis in 2024.

Across all categories, lending businesses seem to be making a comeback from years ago, when they were often maligned by industry investors and CEOs. Among our 18 first-timers, six are lenders, including Arc, Aven, Bilt, Figure, Imprint and Parafin.

Below are the 18 newcomers that made our list this year:

**Arc**
Headquarters: San Francisco, California.
Arc is a neo-commercial bank specializing in private credit and relies on artificial intelligence instead of traditional analysts. It offers two core services: commercial banking, which provides cash management and treasury solutions, and a capital markets platform that uses AI to convert raw data into credit metrics. These metrics are shared with a network of lenders, including private credit funds and banks. With its more efficient, AI-reliant model, Arc charges about 1% for debt offerings, compared to the 3% to 5% charged by traditional banks. In 2024, Arc processed over $4 billion in loan applications; its largest deal was $200 million and average loans were in the tens of millions.

**Aven**
Headquarters: Campbell, California.
Aven issues home equity lines of credit (HELOCs) that can be tapped via a credit card. With consumers’ homes as collateral, the company’s cards offer a lower interest rate than on normal, unsecured credit cards, while its data and tech shrink the normal HELOC approval time. The application process can be completed in minutes, and the cards typically arrive within a week. Typical customers are high earners who make over $100,000 and have high credit scores. The billion-dollar company launched in 2020 after CEO Sadi Khan spent 18 months developing the product.

**Bilt Rewards**
Headquarters: New York, New York.
Founded in 2021, the credit card startup lets U.S. renters earn perks like airline miles on their rent payments. Renters of 4.5 million apartment units can earn Bilt points on rent payments, and the company processed over $36 billion in transactions in 2024.

**Brico**
Headquarters: San Francisco, California.
Brico’s platform helps fintechs and other nonbank financial players, including lenders, money transmitters and debt collectors, automate the cumbersome state-by-state licensing process and keep up with renewals, reporting requirements and regulatory changes. The startup frames its goals in ambitious terms: It wants to be the TurboTax of state-by-state licensing. While it was only founded in 2023, the company already has 30 customers.

**DailyPay**
Headquarters: New York, New York.
DailyPay aims to give employees real-time access to their wages immediately after they’ve earned them. Workers can choose from three disbursement options: free next-day ACH transfers, instant transfers to the DailyPay card or immediate transfers to third-party accounts for a $3.49 fee. It has a client base of over 1,000 businesses, including companies like Target, Hilton and Kroger. The company earns revenue through its instant-transfer fees and interchange fees from its DailyPay card. In the fall of 2024, DailyPay launched in the U.K.

**DataVisor**
Headquarters: Mountain View, California.
DataVisor uses patented machine learning algorithms to flag fraudulent payments, wire transfers and loan applications, specializing in detecting connections between users to expose coordinated fraud rings. Its technology flags suspicious transactions in milliseconds, blocking or delaying them from going through and communicating with users in real time. Its platform can analyze 15,000 transactions per second, and its 50 customers include SoFi, Affirm and Marqeta.

**Figure**
Headquarters: New York, New York.
Cofounded by former SoFi CEO Mike Cagney, Figure uses technology to speed up the process of getting a home equity line of credit (HELOC). It also has a customized blockchain platform that tokenizes (i.e., securitizes) and sells HELOCs to yield-hungry investors through its own private credit marketplace. Figure’s revenue grew by more than 50% in 2024 to $321 million, up from $196 million in 2023, with a 55% gross profit margin. Some 70% of its 150,000 clients have come through its more than 200 fintech and mortgage banking partners, including real estate platforms such as RATE (formerly Guaranteed Rate) and Intuit’s Credit Karma. In April, Michael Tannenbaum, a former Brex executive, became CEO and Cagney became executive chair.

**Highnote**
Headquarters: San Francisco, California.
Founded in 2020, Highnote’s first product was card-issuing software that lets businesses quickly issue customizable debit and credit cards, similar to the services offered by Marqeta. It later released software that allows businesses to accept online credit and debit payments, known as acquiring, putting it in competition with companies like Stripe. In January 2025, Highnote raised $90 million in new funding at a valuation of more than $750 million.

**Imprint**
Headquarters: New York, New York.
Imprint makes software that helps other businesses launch, manage and operate co-branded credit cards. Its clients include companies like H-E-B (Texas's largest grocery retailer), Brooks Brothers and Turkish Airlines. Imprint says it has built its technology in-house with the goal of giving brands more control over their rewards programs.

**Increase**
Headquarters: Bend, Oregon.
Increase helps tech companies store, move and manage money. Founded by Darragh Buckley, Stripe’s first employee, it connects banks and fintechs directly to established payment rails like Visa and the Federal Reserve’s Fedwire and FedACH. Increase focuses on the final step of payments, giving users better visibility into fund flows, thereby improving reliability. Its clients include small and midsized banks and such fintechs as Ramp, Check and Pipe.

**Nala**
Headquarters: New York, New York.
Nala is a cross-border remittance platform that lets consumers in the U.S. and 20 European countries send money to African nations, including Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda. In August 2024, Nala expanded into South Asia and launched its services in the Philippines. Beyond helping consumers make money transfers, Nala's Rafiki (“friend” in Swahili) is a cross-border payment platform that helps African businesses trade globally.

**Parafin**
Headquarters: San Francisco, California.
Parafin was founded by three former Robinhood data scientists to improve lending for small online businesses. By using data from marketplaces like Walmart, DoorDash, Amazon and TikTok, it aims to underwrite loans more effectively. The company believes traditional credit metrics unfairly disadvantage women- minority-owned businesses and that relying on personal credit scores or guarantees discourages many small businesses from accessing credit. Parafin integrates its lending services directly into these marketplaces, allowing sellers to apply for loans on the platforms where they do business. To date, Parafin has facilitated loans for more than 25,000 small businesses.

**Relay**
Headquarters: Toronto.
While it’s based in Canada, Relay generates most of its revenue in the U.S. It’s an online business banking platform designed for small businesses, offering no-fee accounts and money management tools. Customers can open up to 20 free checking accounts and two savings accounts with 1.75–3.76% APY to organize income, manage expenses and build cash reserves. Relay also automates cash management with features like auto-transfer rules and provides a Visa credit card with 1.5% cash back. The platform integrates with accounting software such as QuickBooks and Xero. Relay makes money from interest on deposits, interchange fees and a $30 monthly subscription tier with extras such as same-day payments.

**Securitize**
Headquarters: Miami, Florida.
Securitize puts real world assets like Treasuries or private equity shares on blockchains to make them easy for investors to buy and sell. Its flagship product is BUIDL, a tokenized treasury product launched in March 2024 in partnership with BlackRock, which has $11 trillion in assets under management. BUIDL currently holds $640 million in assets. In October 2024, Securitize launched an expanded suite of fund administration services.

**Squire**
Headquarters: New York, New York.
A business management platform for barbershops, Squire provides tools for booking, scheduling, payments and marketing. After taking eight years to process its first $1 billion in payments, Squire processed its second billion over the past 18 months. It had 20,000 customers at the end of 2024, up from 15,000 the year prior.

**Tipalti**
Headquarters: Foster City, California.
Tipalti aims to speed up bill payments globally by processing them online instead of through paper checks, and it supports payment categories including accounts payable, procurement, mass payments, employee expenses and corporate cards. Customers include companies like Spotify, live-streaming platform Twitch and GoDaddy. In 2024, Tipalti introduced new procurement and AI-based reporting tools, grew its customer base from 4,000 to 5,000 and expanded into Europe.

**True Link Financial**
Headquarters: San Francisco, California.
True Link offers a debit card with customizable spending controls to help individuals with memory loss, mental health challenges or special needs manage their finances. The company supports over 150,000 customers, managing nearly $1.5 billion in assets and processing about $750 million in transactions each year. The service is available for $12 per month.

**Zip**
Headquarters: San Francisco, California.
Procurement, the process companies go through to buy goods and services to run their businesses, has become increasingly decentralized and complex over the past decade, and ever-growing fraud has made it fraught with risk. Zip’s software organizes and orchestrates procurement processes and approvals, visualizing the steps needed to complete a purchase. Zip also processes the payments–the startup says it processed more than $10 billion in 2024. Just four years after its founding, Zip reached a $2.2 billion valuation.

Newcomers To The Fintech 50 2025

The Fintech 50 2025 list features 18 new companies showcasing innovation in a slow funding market. Highnote raised $90 million at a $750 million valuation, while Aven processed $200 million in revenue. Other notable entrants include Arc, Brico, DailyPay, and DataVisor, focusing on diverse fintech solutions. Lending businesses are making a comeback, with six new lenders, including Bilt and Parafin, emphasizing improved credit access.