Reported by Jeff Kauflin, Tom Anderson, Michael del Castillo, Antoine Gara, Sarah Hansen, Jonathan Ponciano and Kristin Stoller.
Some of the private fintech companies on this year’s Fintech 50 list have grown so large they rival public companies. Stripe is now worth $22.5 billion and Credit Karma, $4 billion. But the industry keeps attracting new entrepreneurs and novel ideas—there are 20 companies on our fourth edition of the Fintech 50 that have never appeared on our list.
That includes businesses like Nova Credit, which standardizes information from credit reporting bureaus in India, Mexico and other countries so that U.S. lenders and landlords can serve immigrants who lack a U.S. credit record. Roofstock makes it easier to invest in single-family rental homes. Chime, a mobile-first “neobank,” offers no-fee checking accounts. Cross River, a bank that has become a top fintech partner, handles payments and deposits for Stripe and Coinbase. And the payments category is booming, with companies making big technological advances in credit card processing, corporate credit cards and point-of-sale card readers making our list.
Here are the 20 newcomers to the 2019 Forbes Fintech 50:
Axoni, New York City
Uses blockchain-based smart contracts to overhaul the back office of the world’s biggest derivative markets. Its distributed ledger will allow counterparties to see payments, calculations and other vital trade information in real time, improving efficiency and lowering risk. Already partnering with world’s biggest banks and financial intermediaries.
Funding: $59 million from Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and others
Bona fides: It is currently putting the $10 trillion credit derivative market onto smart contracts working with DTCC and a steering committee of 15 of the world’s biggest banks. It’s already settling foreign exchange trades using the blockchain.
Cofounders: CEO Greg Schvey, 32 and CTO Jeff Schvey, 33. The brothers also cofounded TradeBlock, which provides institutional trading tools for cryptocurrencies.
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Behavox, New York City
It is fast becoming the one-stop AI shop for Wall Street, using algorithms to handle surveillance of email, voice, and text data and accompanying data lakes. Behavox also helps broker-dealers locate asset inventories and hedge funds to uncover hot and cold portfolio managers.
Funding: $15 million from Index Ventures, Hoxton Ventures, Citigroup and others. Latest valuation: about $300 million
Bona fides: Nearly 30 customers, including Balyasny Asset Management, Arrowgrass, Marshall Wace, TP ICAP, Citigroup, Anglo American
Founder & CEO: Erkin Adylov, 35, a Kyrgyzstan-born former Goldman analyst and hedge fund portfolio manager
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Bolt, San Francisco
Its mobile-ready checkout software for ecommerce sites incorporates sales analysis and fraud prevention, topped by a guarantee to cover any fraud losses. Bolt claims the integrated functions can cut checkout times from more than one minute to 30 seconds. In the year since its early 2018 launch, it has grown from 10 to 75 employees.
Funding: $20 million from Founders Fund, Intuit and others
Bona fides: Already has hundreds of customers and is processing about $500 million in sales a year. Users include tempting targets for fraud such as watch and diamond merchants.
Cofounder and CEO: Ryan Breslow, 24, who dropped out of Stanford’s computer science program in 2014 to start Bolt
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Brex, San Francisco
Offers a corporate credit card explicitly designed for startups, with applicants’ approval and credit limits based largely on how much cash a company has, rather than an entrepreneur’s personal credit history. Points heavily reward software subscriptions, travel expenses and rideshares.
Funding: $215 million from Y Combinator, DST Global and Greenoaks Capital; latest valuation: $1.1 billion
Bona fides: Reached $1.1 billion valuation in just 22 months
Cofounders: CEO Henrique Dubugras, 23 and COO Pedro Franceschi, 22, both Brazilian-born, Stanford-educated computer engineers
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Carta, Palo Alto, CA
Helps private companies, investors and employees track and manage their ownership, acting as transfer agent on equity grants. Already installed nearly 100 unicorns, it aims to expand from venture-backed startups to private equity and real estate, becoming a seamless secondary marketplace for private asset sales.
Funding: $148 million from Spark Capital, Tribe Capital, Meritech and others; latest valuation: $800 million
Bona fides: Tracking $500 billion-plus in company equity, including for Robinhood, Slack, Coinbase, Casper, Tilray and Affirm. Has facilitated nearly $1 billion in secondary-market sales.
Cofounder & CEO: Henry Ward, 42, who launched the company in 2012 as eShares with serial entrepreneur and investor Manu Kumar, 43
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Chime, San Francisco
Mobile-first bank offers checking accounts, debit cards and service that rounds up purchases, depositing extra pennies in savings. Members can tap into direct-deposited pay two days early with no fee. Recently acquired Pinch, an app to help users improve their credit scores.
Funding: $105 million from Menlo Ventures, Crosslink, Forerunner Ventures and others. Latest valuation: About $500 million
Bona fides: More than 2.6 million accounts, with 350,000 being added per month
Cofounders: CEO Chris Britt, 45, and CTO Ryan King, 42
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Circle, Boston
Crypto finance giant Circle last year entered the exchange business with the purchase of Poloniex and now offers services for cryptocurrency trading, investing and payments. Last October partnered with Coinbase to launch USDC stable coin—a crypto asset using the Ethereum blockchain and backed by U.S. dollars.
Funding: $246 million from IDG Capital, Bitmain, Breyer Capital, Goldman Sachs and others. Latest valuation: $3 billion
Bona fides: 8 million customers from more than 100 countries; USDC has $335 million in recent market value, making it among the 20 most valuable cryptos
Cofounder & CEO: Jeremy Allaire, 47, previously founded publicly traded Brightcove online video platform
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Cross River, Fort Lee, NJ
Born from a small New Jersey community bank, Cross River has used its FDIC-insured status to become the banker to the world’s most valuable fintechs. It creates the notes behind the loans firms like Quicken’s RocketLoans, Affirm and Best Egg dole out. Also handles payments and deposits for the likes of Stripe, TransferWise, Visa and Coinbase, among others.
Funding: $128 million from KKR, Andreessen Horowitz, CreditEase, LionTree Partners and others. Latest valuation: About $1 billion
Bona fides: $130 million in annual revenue, originated $20 billion in loans and growing 30%-plus
Founder & CEO: Gilles Gade, 52. Prior to founding Cross River in 2008, the French-born Gade was a technology investment banker and analyst and CFO of a mortgage company
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Even, Oakland, CA
Budgeting and savings mobile app that links to users’ bank accounts, asks about upcoming bills and estimates how much they have left to spend. Employees can pay $8 a month to get interest-free access to money they’ve already earned ahead of payday. Will soon offer automatic savings feature.
Funding: $51 million from Khosla Ventures, Valar Ventures and others. Latest valuation: $102 million*
Bona fides: More than 400,000 users from more than 10 companies, including Walmart and Kronos
Cofounders: CEO Jon Schlossberg, 31; COO Quinten Farmer, 28; head of product Ryan Gomba, 27
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Flywire, Boston
Helps colleges, hospitals and businesses speed up receipt of tuition and other payments made in foreign currencies at a fee of 2% to 3%—about half what banks charge. Its software handles complex currency routing and settles transactions in two days.
Funding: $142 million from Bain Capital Ventures, Fidelity’s F-Prime Capital, Spark Capital and others. Latest valuation: $700 million*
Bona fides: Processed $4 billion in 2018 and has 900 higher education customers, including seven of the eight Ivy League colleges.
Founder: Iker Marcaide
CEO: Mike Massaro, 40, who joined Flywire in 2012 to lead sales and marketing and was named CEO a year later
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Gemini, New York City
Founded by twin brothers Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange is licensed as a New York trust company, making it a qualified custodian and a fiduciary under New York Law. Now licensed to do business in 49 states, Gemini is leading the fight for an SEC-approved bitcoin ETF and launched the Virtual Commodities Association to promote cryptocurrency industry self-regulation.
Funding: Winklevoss Capital Management, wholly owned by Tyler and Cameron
Bona fides: Employs 200 people and just moved to a new 50,000-square-foot office
Cofounder & CEO: Tyler Winklevoss, 37, a former Olympic rower
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Marqeta, Oakland, CA
Debit card processor that makes it easier for businesses that issue workers cards to manage which transactions are authorized. For instance, grocery-delivery startup Instacart uses Marqeta to control which items its delivery employees can purchase, reducing fraud.
Funding: $116 million from Visa, Iconiq, 83 North (formerly Greylock Israel) and others. Latest valuation: $545 million*
Bona fides: Counts Square and Fintech 50 2019 members Kabbage, Affirm and Brex as customers
Founder and CEO: Jason Gardner, 49, a serial entrepreneur who founded a rent payments startup in 2004, which was later acquired by MoneyGram for $28 million
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Nova Credit, San Francisco
Integrates and standardizes information from credit reporting bureaus in India, Mexico, the U.K., Canada and other countries so that U.S. lenders and landlords can serve immigrants who lack a U.S. credit record. In addition to reporting their foreign payment history, Nova creates a “Credit Passport” number for newcomers similar to a FICO credit score.
Funding: $20 million from General Catalyst, Index Ventures and First Round
Bona fides: Recently partnered with Yardi, a major property management software platform, to help screen immigrants applying for housing.
Cofounders: CEO Misha Esipov, 30; COO Nicky Goulimis, 30; and CTO Loek Janssen, 29 conceived Nova as a graduate class project at Stanford
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Opendoor, San Francisco
Uses data and algorithms to value and buy homes (sight unseen) in 20 cities, delivering cash to seller in a matter of days, minus a service charge averaging 7%. Makes any needed fixes and resells the homes.
Funding: $1 billion, including recent $400 million from SoftBank Vision Fund. Latest valuation: $2 billion-plus
Bona fides: Buying homes at a run-rate of around $3.8 billion a year
Cofounders: Executive chairman Keith Rabois, 49, a senior partner at Khosla Ventures who came up with the idea of Opendoor; CEO Eric Wu, 36; CTO Ian Wong, 32; and JD Ross, 28
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Poynt, Palo Alto, CA
Its point-of-sale software and hardware turn dumb credit card readers into smart devices that allow third-party developers to build applications on top, e.g., loyalty reward programs that don’t require shoppers to flash a card or enter a number.
Funding: $132 million from Matrix partners, Oak HC/FT, GV and others. Latest valuation: $450 million*
Bona fides: Has shipped and deployed 100,000 devices and is on track to process $20 billion in transactions over the next year
Founder and CEO: Osama Bedier, 43, the founder of Google Wallet
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Roofstock, Oakland, CA
Platform provides tools to investors for evaluating, buying and selling single-family rental homes in 41 markets. Guarantees up to 12 months of rent on a vacant property purchased through the platform.
Funding: $75 million from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures and others. Latest valuation: $275 million
Bona fides: More than $1 billion in transactions completed on Roofstock platform
Cofounders: CEO Gary Beasley, 53; chairman Gregor Watson, 38; chief development officer Rich Ford, 49
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Root Insurance, Columbus, OH
Sells app-centric car insurance in 22 states with pricing based heavily on how an individual drives. Prospective customers download the Root app, activate a two- to three-week test drive and then get a quote (if they qualify as a good driver). Users can pay, file a claim and get roadside assistance in-app.
Funding: $171 million from Tiger Global Management, Redpoint Ventures, Ribbit Capital and others. Latest valuation: $1 billion
Bona fides: Says good drivers can save about $1,187 per year on car insurance.
Cofounders: CEO Alex Timm, 30, a former Nationwide consultant; CTO Dan Manges, 33, the former CTO of Braintree before it was acquired by PayPal
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Stash, New York City
Mobile investing app offers ordinary consumers a full suite of investing tools that includes no-commission trading and fractional purchases of stocks and ETFs, themed investment portfolios,IRAs and even custodial accounts for kids. Users with accounts below $5,000 pay $1 a month; larger accounts are charged 0.25% of assets a year. Coming soon: banking services with cash-back debit cards and early access to direct deposited paychecks.
Funding: $117 million from Union Square Ventures, Breyer Capital, Coatue Management, Entree Capital and others
Latest valuation: $350 million*
Bona fides: 3 million customers
Cofounders: CEO Brandon Krieg, 44, and president Ed Robinson, 35, who met at a securities firm where Krieg led electronic trading
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Toast, Boston
Started in 2011 by three MIT grads, it makes point-of-sale devices for restaurants that can also handle such complex tasks as managing food inventory.
Funding: $248 million from Bessemer Venture Partners, T. Rowe Price, Tiger Global Management and others. Latest valuation: $1.4 billion
Bona fides: Tens of thousands of customers, including Jamba Juice and Pieology, a pizza chain with 150 locations
Founders: Co-presidents Aman Narang, 36, and Steve Fredette, 35; CTO Jonathan Grimm, 33
CEO: Chris Comparato, a business software veteran
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Tradeshift, San Francisco
Processes payments for supply-chain transactions, handling everything from “know your customer” (KYC) regulatory checks to running cash flow analytics and recommending how quickly a customer should pay a supplier.
Funding: $400 million from Goldman Sachs, Public Sector Pension Investment Board, HSBC and others. Latest valuation: $1.2 billion
Bona fides: Processes $500 billion annually in supply-chain payments and has 500 customers across 19 countries
Cofounders: CEO Christian Lanng, 40; SVP and head of Asia Pacific region Mikkel Brun, 50; general manager of Tradeshift’s R&D and investment arm Gert Sylvest, 47
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*Source: Pitchbook
For full Forbes Fintech 50 2019 coverage, see:
Full list of the Fintech 50 2019
The Future Of Real Estate: Fintech 50 2019
The Future Of Blockchain: Fintech 50 2019
The Future Of Lending: Fintech 50 2019
The Future Of Personal Finance: Fintech 50 2019
The Future Of Investing: Fintech 50 2019
The Future Of Payments: Fintech 50 2019
The Future Of Wall Street: Fintech 50 2019
The 10 Biggest Fintech Companies In America 2019
A 29-Year-Old Dominican Immigrant Is Teaching Fintech Startups How Real People Relate To Money
