Who plays here 8
RevolutFull UK bankNubank139M customersChimeNasdaqSoFi17.1M membersCash AppBlockMonzoOne ZeroILEsh BankIL
State of Fintech 2026
The financial stack read bottom-up, from the rails money settles on to the products people and companies use every day. For each layer: who is active in it, which strategics would plausibly acquire there, who leads rounds in Israel and the US, and what moved this year. We publish what we can attribute to a named source and leave the rest blank.
9
Layers
6
Cross-cutting
177
Companies
57
Lead investors
52
Sourced signals
The stack at a glance
Select a layer to jump to it.
- L9Consumer Finance & Neobanks5 deals
- L8Wealth & Capital Markets7 deals
- L7Insurance6 deals
- L6Business Finance & CFO Stack7 deals
- L5Lending & Credit5 deals
- L4Embedded Finance & Vertical Platforms5 deals
- L3Payments & Commerce Infrastructure6 deals
- L2Banking Infrastructure6 deals
- L1Money Rails & Settlement5 deals
The year in numbers
Where the money went in 2026, and the five shifts that explain it. Every figure links to its source.
$51.8B
Global fintech VC, 2025
Up 27% on 2024, the first annual rise in four years
Crunchbase News$28.6B
Global fintech VC, H1 2026
Up 23% year on year, across 26% fewer deals
Crunchbase News687
Fintech rounds, Q3 2026
The lowest quarterly count Crunchbase has recorded since Q1 2018
Crunchbase News$67.9B
Fintech M&A, H1 2026
394 deals, led by Global Payments and Worldpay at $24.3B
KPMG Pulse of Fintech$5.8B
Israeli fintech M&A, 2025
Up from $1.2B in 2024, on about $1.4B of new funding
Viola Ventures via ReutersFive things that defined 2026
- 01
Capital concentrated in fewer, larger rounds
Dollars rose through the first half while deal count fell to a multi-year low. Ramp alone raised twice, $750M in June and about $1.85B in October, ending at a $60B pre-money valuation. Crunchbase News
- 02
Stablecoins became a rail the networks own
Mastercard closed BVNK, Visa was reported in talks for Fireblocks, and the OCC finalised its GENIUS Act issuer rule in October, ahead of the law taking effect in January 2027. Mastercard
- 03
Fintechs became banks
The OCC approved a run of charters: Circle, Ripple, Paxos and BitGo as trust banks, then Coinbase, Mercury, Nubank, Revolut and Upstart. Revolut also won its full UK licence in March. American Banker
- 04
Prediction markets broke out
Kalshi raised $1B at $22B in May and Polymarket $1B at $21B in August, while the CFTC sued three states to keep jurisdiction over event contracts. Business Wire
- 05
AI took the capital, and agents learned to pay
AI-focused fintechs drew $21.4B across VC, PE and M&A in the first half. Stripe with OpenAI, Mastercard, Visa and Coinbase each rolled out a way for an AI agent to start a payment. KPMG Pulse of Fintech
Defining deals
- Worldpay$24.3Bacq. Global Payments, closed Jan 2026
- Brex$5.15Bacq. Capital One, Jan 2026
- PayoneerIL$2.75Bacq. Nuvei, agreed Jun 2026
- BioCatchIL$2.4Bacq. Visa, agreed Aug 2026
- BVNKup to $1.8Bacq. Mastercard, closed Aug 2026
- BluevineIL~$340Macq. Valley National, agreed Sep 2026
Largest private rounds of 2026
- Ramp$1.85Bat $60B pre-money, Oct 2026
- Ant International$1.2BSeries A at $11.2B, Q3 2026
- Kalshi$1Bat $22B, May 2026
- Polymarket$1Bat $21B, Aug 2026
- Cred$900MSeries H at ~$4.5B, Jun 2026
- Mercury$200Mat $5.2B, May 2026
The IPO class of 2025-26
- Klarna$1.37BNYSE, Sep 2025, ~$15B
- NavanIL$923MNasdaq, Oct 2025, $6.2B
- Chime$864MNasdaq, Jun 2025, $11.6B
- eToroIL$620MNasdaq, May 2025, ~$4.2B
- Wealthfront$485MNasdaq, Dec 2025
- PicPay$434MNasdaq, Jan 2026
Figures as published through 2 Nov 2026. IL marks an Israeli or Israeli-founded company.
Names carrying an arrow open their full profile on the Velo platform: team, rounds, investors and portfolio. Sign in or create your free account to follow one.
15 layers and cross-cutting concerns
The stack
Nine layers, from settlement at the bottom to the products customers see at the top.
9
Consumer Finance & Neobanks
Digital banks and consumer money apps
Notable rounds
What this layer is
Digital-first banks and consumer money apps that hold deposits, issue cards and lend to people through a phone.
Why it matters
The primary account is the cheapest funding a fintech can get and the richest data it can hold, and it carries every cross-sell above it: credit, investing, insurance. The leaders now rank among the most valuable financial institutions in their markets, and a full charter has become the moat.
What is moving now
The leaders moved onto full charters at scale. Revolut left UK mobilisation with a full banking licence in March 2026 and a secondary sale in July priced it at a reported $115B, up from $75B in November 2025. Nubank won conditional OCC approval for a US national bank in January and earned $1.1B in Q2 across 139M customers. In Israel, Esh Bank launched in September 2025 sharing half its deposit income with customers, and Isracard's agreement to buy it for up to NIS 500M lapsed in July 2026.
The vocabulary
- Neobank
- A bank or banking app delivered entirely through digital channels, often running on a partner bank's licence.
- Bank charter
- A full licence to take insured deposits and lend directly, which lowers funding costs and ends the dependence on a partner bank.
- Primary account
- The account a customer's salary lands in. It decides who sees the cash flow and who gets to offer credit.
- Net interest margin
- The spread a bank earns between interest on loans and interest paid on deposits, as a share of assets.
ILLead investors
USLead investors
8
Wealth & Capital Markets
Brokerage, wealthtech, prediction markets and market infrastructure
Who plays here 8
Robinhood$1.31B Q2 revenueeToroIL, NasdaqCharles SchwabInteractive BrokersWealthfrontNasdaqPublicKalshiPolymarket
Notable rounds
Kalshi$1B at $22B
Polymarket$1B at $21B
Alpaca$150M Series D
Farther$150M Series D
Jump$80M Series B
Wealthfront$485M IPO
eToro$620M IPO
What this layer is
Brokerage and trading apps, wealth platforms for advisors, prediction markets, and the infrastructure that clears and custodies retail trades.
Why it matters
Retail participation and new asset classes keep setting volume records, and whoever owns the account owns the cross-sell into crypto, options, banking and advice. Exchange operators now invest directly in consumer venues, which makes this layer a strategic battleground.
What is moving now
Prediction markets were the breakout category of the year. Kalshi raised $1B at $22B in May, led by Coatue, and Polymarket raised $1B at $21B in August after ICE committed up to $2B the previous October. Robinhood's event-contract revenue reached $156M in Q2, and in April the CFTC sued Illinois, Connecticut and Arizona to assert exclusive jurisdiction. Advisor tooling drew growth capital too: Farther raised $150M and Jump $80M.
The vocabulary
- Event contract
- A derivative that pays out on whether a defined event happens, such as an election result or a rate decision.
- DCM
- Designated contract market: a CFTC-licensed exchange that can list futures and event contracts to US users.
- Payment for order flow
- Fees a broker receives from market makers for routing customer orders to them.
- Self-clearing
- A broker that settles and custodies its own trades instead of paying a third-party clearing firm.
ILLead investors
None we can attribute yet
7
Insurance
Insurtech carriers, MGAs, embedded insurance and AI underwriting
Who plays here 8
Notable rounds
Would plausibly acquire 6
Munich Re / ERGOVeriskGuidewireAcrisureAllianzZurich
What this layer is
Companies that underwrite, distribute or service insurance with software: full-stack carriers, MGAs, embedded cover and AI for underwriting and claims.
Why it matters
Insurance still runs on manual submissions and claims files, so software that underwrites or settles a claim improves margins directly. Carriers and reinsurers have shown they pay billions for distribution and data, and Israel has produced several of the category's defining companies.
What is moving now
Capital came back and almost all of it went to AI. Gallagher Re counted $1.63B of insurtech funding in Q1 2026, about 95% of it into AI-focused companies. AI-native MGAs and agent platforms raised the large rounds: Corgi $160M at $1.3B, Pace $46M from Thrive and Sequoia. The listed Israeli-founded insurers now report profits: Hippo booked $10M of Q2 net income on premium up 62%, and Lemonade's in-force premium reached $1.43B.
The vocabulary
- MGA
- Managing general agent: a specialist that prices and writes policies on behalf of a carrier that holds the risk.
- Combined ratio
- Claims plus expenses as a share of earned premium. Below 100% means underwriting makes money.
- Embedded insurance
- Cover sold inside another company's purchase flow, such as protection offered at checkout.
- Loss ratio
- Claims paid as a share of premium earned, the core measure of underwriting quality.
ILLead investors
USLead investors
6
Business Finance & CFO Stack
Spend, AP/AR, business banking, treasury and accounting
Who plays here 8
Ramp$60BBrexCapital OneMercury$5.2BTipaltiILMelioIL, XeroNavanIL founders, NasdaqBill HoldingsIntuit QuickBooks
Notable rounds
Would plausibly acquire 6
What this layer is
Software and financial products that run a company's money: corporate cards and spend, payables and receivables, business banking, treasury, accounting and planning.
Why it matters
The CFO stack sits on top of every business transaction, so it combines software margins with payments and deposit income. AI agents now handle close, reconciliation and expense review, which reopens the ledger and the ERP to new entrants.
What is moving now
Ramp set the pace of the year: $750M at $44B in June, then about $1.85B at a $60B pre-money valuation in October. Banks bought scale: Capital One agreed to acquire Brex for $5.15B in January, and Valley National agreed to buy Israeli-founded Bluevine for about $340M in September, a year after Xero closed its $2.5B purchase of Melio. AI-native accounting drew growth money, with Rillet reaching a $1B valuation, and Mercury raised $200M at $5.2B after conditional OCC approval.
The vocabulary
- Spend management
- Corporate cards combined with software that enforces policy, captures receipts and codes expenses automatically.
- AP automation
- Software that ingests, approves and pays supplier bills and matches them to purchase orders.
- Continuous close
- Reconciliations that run every day, so month-end close takes hours.
- AI-native ERP
- A general ledger built around agents that handle entry, matching and reporting.
ILLead investors
USLead investors
5
Lending & Credit
Consumer and SMB credit, BNPL, cards, mortgages and the capital behind them
Notable rounds
Would plausibly acquire 6
What this layer is
Consumer and SMB credit: installment loans, BNPL, cards and mortgages, the underwriting behind them, and the capital markets that fund them.
Why it matters
Credit is where fintech earns the most per customer, and it runs on cheap, repeatable funding. The durable lenders pair underwriting data with reliable access to securitisation, forward flow or a charter of their own.
What is moving now
BNPL became a regulated, listed business. Klarna listed on the NYSE in September 2025 at about $15B and applied for a US bank licence in July 2026, Affirm's fiscal Q4 volume grew 36% to $14.1B, and UK BNPL came under FCA rules on 15 July. Funding markets stayed open for AI underwriters: Israel-rooted Pagaya passed $40B of lifetime ABS issuance with an upsized $800M AAA deal in June. Mortgage servicing drew one of the larger rounds, Valon's $150M at $2.3B.
The vocabulary
- BNPL
- Point-of-sale credit that splits a purchase into short instalments, often interest-free.
- ABS
- Asset-backed securities: loans packaged into bonds and sold to institutional investors.
- Forward flow
- An investor's commitment to buy a lender's new loans as they are originated.
- Industrial bank charter
- A state licence, usually from Utah, that lets a non-bank parent own an FDIC-insured lender.
ILLead investors
USLead investors
4
Embedded Finance & Vertical Platforms
Payments, cards, accounts and loans inside software platforms
Who plays here 7
Notable rounds
Would plausibly acquire 6
What this layer is
Payments, cards, accounts and loans built into the software a business already runs on.
Why it matters
A platform that owns the daily workflow can capture the payments and lending economics that once sat with banks and processors. For many vertical software companies, financial revenue already exceeds subscription revenue.
What is moving now
Toast shows how far this has gone: $1.57B of its $1.91B Q2 revenue came from financial products, on $60.7B of volume. ServiceTitan added AP automation, tap-to-pay and financing for contractors in January. Card issuing on stablecoin rails drew growth capital, with Rain raising $250M at $1.95B, and the plumbing consolidated: NMI bought Dwolla in June and Israel's Nayax closed its acquisition of IPS Group on 1 October.
The vocabulary
- Embedded payments
- Payment acceptance built into a software product, with the platform keeping a share of processing revenue.
- Payfac
- A payment facilitator that onboards sub-merchants under its own master merchant account.
- BaaS
- Banking-as-a-service: a licensed bank exposing accounts, cards and money movement to non-banks through APIs.
- Take rate
- The share of payment volume a platform keeps as revenue.
ILLead investors
USLead investors
3
Payments & Commerce Infrastructure
Processing, acquiring, orchestration, checkout and payouts
Who plays here 8
Notable rounds
Would plausibly acquire 6
What this layer is
The software and licences that let merchants and platforms accept, route and pay out money: gateways, acquiring, orchestration, checkout and cross-border payouts.
Why it matters
This layer owns the merchant relationship and the data on every transaction, which is where pricing power and cross-sell sit. Scale and licence coverage drive consolidation, and Israeli companies are central to it: Rapyd, Payoneer, Tipalti and Melio.
What is moving now
The processors consolidated. Global Payments completed Worldpay in January ($24.3B, the largest fintech deal of the half per KPMG), Visa agreed to buy Argentina's Prisma and Newpay, and Nuvei agreed in June to buy Payoneer for $2.75B in cash. The leaders grew profitably: Stripe was valued at $159B in a February tender after processing $1.9T in 2025, and Checkout.com reached $750M of annualised net revenue. Growth capital went to orchestration and cross-border: Primer $100M, Airwallex $330M at $8B.
The vocabulary
- Merchant acquirer
- The licensed institution that contracts with a merchant and settles its card payments.
- Payment orchestration
- A layer that routes each transaction across several processors to raise approval rates and lower cost.
- Authorisation rate
- The share of attempted payments the issuing bank approves. A point of it is worth real revenue at scale.
- Mass payouts
- Automated disbursement to many recipients across countries and currencies.
ILLead investors
USLead investors
2
Banking Infrastructure
Core banking, ledgers, BaaS, sponsor banks and charters
Who plays here 8
Notable rounds
What this layer is
The systems and licensed balance sheets that hold deposits and keep the books: core banking, ledgers, banking-as-a-service and the sponsor banks behind fintechs.
Why it matters
Whoever holds the charter and the ledger keeps the deposit economics and answers to the regulator. The 2025 and 2026 OCC approvals let fintechs and crypto firms own that layer directly for the first time at scale.
What is moving now
A charter wave is under way. The OCC conditionally approved five crypto trust banks in December 2025 (Circle, Ripple, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets, Paxos), then Bridge and Crypto.com in February and Coinbase and Mercury in April, and Circle received final approval in July. Capital followed the new bank builders: Erebor raised $350M at $4.35B and was later reported in talks at $8B, sponsor bank Cross River raised $50M at $3B. In Israel, Esh Bank opened its own core, eOS, to other institutions in March.
The vocabulary
- Core banking
- The system of record that opens accounts, posts transactions, accrues interest and holds balances.
- Sponsor bank
- A chartered bank that holds the deposits and the regulatory responsibility for fintech programmes built on it.
- National trust charter
- An OCC charter for custody and fiduciary activity without insured deposits, now the main route for stablecoin issuers.
- De novo bank
- A newly chartered bank, as opposed to one acquired to get a licence.
ILLead investors
None we can attribute yet
USLead investors
1
Money Rails & Settlement
Card networks, instant payments, cross-border and stablecoin rails
Who plays here 8
Notable rounds
What this layer is
The networks that move and finally settle value: card schemes, instant payment systems, cross-border messaging and stablecoin settlement chains.
Why it matters
Whoever controls settlement sets the cost, speed and compliance terms for every layer above. Regulated dollar stablecoins are now a second settlement rail beside the card schemes and SWIFT, and the incumbents are buying their way onto it.
What is moving now
The card networks bought stablecoin infrastructure. Mastercard agreed to acquire BVNK for up to $1.8B in March, the largest stablecoin deal to date, after Stripe's $1.1B Bridge purchase in 2025. US rules firmed up: the OCC finalised its GENIUS Act issuer rule on 21 October, ahead of the law taking effect in January 2027, and Tether launched a US-regulated coin, USAT. Israel's Capital Markets Authority approved a shekel-pegged stablecoin from Bits of Gold in April. Capital went to settlement chains: Tempo, incubated by Stripe, raised $500M at about $5B.
The vocabulary
- Payment stablecoin
- A token redeemable one-for-one for fiat and backed by reserves. In the US it falls under the GENIUS Act.
- Instant payment scheme
- A 24/7 domestic rail that settles account-to-account transfers in seconds, such as FedNow, Pix or UPI.
- RTGS
- Real-time gross settlement: each payment settles individually and with finality, as on Fedwire.
- On/off-ramp
- The service that converts fiat to stablecoins and back, linking bank accounts to on-chain settlement.
ILLead investors
USLead investors
Cuts across every layer
Six concerns that every layer carries at once: risk, identity, regulation, new rails, agents and data.
·
Fraud & Financial Crime
Fraud, scams, chargebacks and AML monitoring
Who plays here 7
Notable rounds
BioCatch$2.4B acq. Visa, IL
Socuregrowth round at $5.2B
Feedzai$75M at $2B
Memcyco$37M Series A
Chargeflow$35M Series A, IL
Allure Security$17M Series B
What this layer is
Technology that detects and stops payment fraud, account takeover, scams, chargebacks and money laundering across the life of a transaction.
Why it matters
Fraud losses grow with instant payments and generative AI, and regulators are moving scam liability onto payment providers. Every bank, processor and merchant buys this layer, and Israel builds a large share of it.
What is moving now
Mandatory reimbursement is changing incentives: the UK regulator's evaluation in July found scam losses over Faster Payments fell 21% after providers became liable. Visa agreed to buy Israel's BioCatch for $2.4B in cash in August, about 15 months after Permira bought control at $1.3B. Socure raised at $5.2B and bought Fravity to run casework with AI agents, and Israel's Chargeflow raised $35M led by Viola Growth.
The vocabulary
- APP fraud
- Authorised push payment fraud: a victim is tricked into sending money to a scammer.
- Chargeback
- A card payment reversal started by the cardholder's bank after a dispute.
- Transaction monitoring
- Automated screening of payments for patterns that suggest laundering or fraud.
- Account takeover
- A criminal gains control of a real customer's account, usually with stolen credentials or social engineering.
ILLead investors
USLead investors
·
Identity & Onboarding
KYC, KYB, document and biometric verification
Who plays here 7
Notable rounds
ID.me$340M Series E
Persona$200M Series D
Frame Security$50M, IL
Vouched$17M
Vespiaacq. Veriff
KYC360acq. Experian
What this layer is
Verifying that a person or business is real and is who they claim to be, at onboarding and for the life of the account.
Why it matters
Identity is the gate to every regulated financial product, and generative AI has made forged documents and faces cheap. Stronger identity lowers fraud, onboarding cost and compliance exposure further down the stack.
What is moving now
Deepfakes went mainstream in fraud: Entrust's 2026 report puts them at about one in five biometric fraud attempts, with deepfaked selfies up 58%. Verification vendors are widening into business checks and full trust platforms: Veriff bought Vespia in February, a few months after Experian bought KYC360. Israel's Frame Security came out of stealth in May with $50M, co-led by Team8, to stop AI impersonation of employees.
The vocabulary
- KYC / KYB
- Know your customer and know your business: the checks that establish who a customer or company is.
- Liveness detection
- A test that confirms a real person is in front of the camera.
- Injection attack
- Feeding synthetic images or video straight into a verification system to get past live capture.
- Reusable identity
- A credential verified once that the user can present again to other services.
ILLead investors
USLead investors
·
Compliance & RegTech
AML programmes, sanctions, reporting and AI compliance agents
Who plays here 5
Notable rounds
Norm Ai$120M Series C
Bretton AI$75M Series B
Complyance$20M Series A
Haast$12M Series A
Fravityacq. Socure
What this layer is
Software that turns regulatory obligations into automated, auditable workflows: AML programmes, sanctions screening, reporting and policy review.
Why it matters
Compliance headcount is one of the largest cost lines in any regulated institution. Agents that clear alerts and reviews change the unit economics of holding a licence.
What is moving now
The rules are being rewritten around effectiveness: FinCEN proposed a reform of AML programme requirements in April, the EU's AML Regulation applies from July 2027 and the new EU authority starts direct supervision in 2028. AI compliance agents raised at scale: Norm Ai reached $1.2B with a $120M Series C led by Khosla, and Bretton AI raised $75M led by Sapphire. Israel's ThetaRay sells an AI layer that sits on top of banks' legacy monitoring rules.
The vocabulary
- AML/CFT programme
- The policies, controls, testing and training a regulated firm keeps to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing.
- Sanctions screening
- Checking customers and payments against government sanctions lists.
- SAR
- Suspicious activity report: the filing a firm sends to its financial intelligence unit.
- Compliance agent
- Software that runs a review end to end, such as a KYC refresh or an alert investigation, and leaves an audit trail.
ILLead investors
JVPOurCrowd
USLead investors
·
Digital Assets & Tokenization
Stablecoins, tokenized funds, custody and settlement
Notable rounds
BVNKacq. Mastercard
SecuritizeNYSE via SPAC
Superstate$82.5M Series B
TRES Financeacq. Fireblocks
Blockaid$50M Series B, IL
What this layer is
Infrastructure to issue, hold, move and settle stablecoins and tokenized securities such as Treasury and money market funds.
Why it matters
US stablecoin law and the card networks' entry are turning on-chain dollars into a mainstream rail, and tokenized funds give institutions collateral that moves around the clock. Israel holds one of the category's anchor companies in Fireblocks.
What is moving now
After the GENIUS Act was signed in July 2025, the networks bought in: Mastercard closed BVNK in August, and Axios reported Visa in talks to buy Fireblocks for about $2.5B in October, which Fireblocks denied. Tokenized Treasuries passed $10B in February per rwa.xyz, and Securitize, the issuer behind BlackRock's BUIDL, listed on the NYSE in July. Fireblocks itself bought crypto accounting firm TRES Finance in January.
The vocabulary
- Stablecoin
- A token designed to hold a fixed value, usually one dollar, backed by reserves.
- Tokenized fund
- A regulated fund whose shares are issued and transferred as tokens.
- RWA
- Real-world assets such as Treasuries, credit or property represented on-chain.
- MPC custody
- Multi-party computation: key control split across several parties so none holds the whole key.
ILLead investors
USLead investors
·
AI & Agentic Commerce
Agent payments, protocols and AI-native finance operations
Who plays here 5
What this layer is
The credentials, protocols and rails that let AI agents buy and pay on a user's behalf, plus AI-native software that runs finance operations.
Why it matters
When an agent starts the transaction, authentication, liability and merchant discovery all need new standards, and the networks are racing to set them. The same agents are taking over accounting and back-office finance.
What is moving now
The standards arrived in sequence: Stripe and OpenAI released the Agentic Commerce Protocol with checkout inside ChatGPT, Santander and Mastercard ran Europe's first live authenticated agent payment in March, and Visa piloted a single on-ramp for agents in April. Coinbase's x402 passed 100M transactions on Base by June. AI-native finance ops reached unicorn scale, with Basis raising $100M at $1.15B. KPMG counts $21.4B into AI-focused fintech in the first half.
The vocabulary
- Agentic commerce
- Purchases an AI agent starts and completes for a user, inside limits the user sets.
- Agentic token
- A network payment credential issued to a registered agent, with scoped spending rules.
- ACP
- Agentic Commerce Protocol: the open standard from Stripe and OpenAI that connects agents to merchant checkout.
- x402
- Coinbase's open protocol that uses the HTTP 402 status code so software can pay per request in stablecoins.
ILLead investors
None we can attribute yet
USLead investors
·
Data & Open Finance
Account aggregation, open banking and cash-flow data
Notable rounds
Would plausibly acquire 6
What this layer is
Permissioned access to people's and businesses' account data through aggregators and APIs, used for payments, underwriting and money management.
Why it matters
Bank data feeds cash-flow credit, account-to-account payments and fraud models. Who pays for access, and on what terms, sets the margins of every fintech that depends on it.
What is moving now
US open banking is being rewritten in public and priced in private. The CFPB's 2024 Section 1033 rule is enjoined while the agency redrafts it, and a new proposal went to White House review in August. JPMorgan meanwhile signed paid data-access agreements with Plaid, Yodlee, Morningstar and Akoya. Plaid's employee liquidity round in February valued it at about $8B, and cash-flow underwriting kept raising, with Prism Data at $20M in October.
The vocabulary
- Section 1033
- The Dodd-Frank provision giving US consumers the right to access and share their financial data.
- Data aggregator
- A company that connects to many banks and delivers normalised account data to apps.
- Cash-flow underwriting
- Credit decisions based on bank transaction history alongside bureau scores.
- Data access fee
- A charge a bank levies on third parties that pull customer-permissioned data.
ILLead investors
None we can attribute yet
USLead investors
How to read this
Who plays here lists companies operating in the layer; inclusion is a statement about category only. Notable rounds shows 2025-26 raises, exits and listings we could attribute to a named source. Would plausibly acquire lists the strategics whose platform the layer would fold into. Lead investors name funds with a verified deal in the layer. Signals are dated items, tagged Primary when they come from the company or a regulator. Trackers disagree on market totals, so each figure in the year in numbers names its source and period. Where something shows nothing, we had nothing we were willing to put a name to.