STORIES

Rethinking Credit: How Clusivi Rewards Planning Instead of Debt

Clusivi helps consumers and small businesses plan ahead for high-value purchases and qualify for affordable credit based on real-time prepayment behavior rather than traditional credit scores.

The Best Scaling Decision You’ll Make Has Nothing to Do With Infrastructure: Conversation with Giorgio Natili

The Fortnight That Could Save Your Startup: Interview with Bettina Slater

Bettina has spent 25 years watching smart founders execute themselves into corners. Now, with SuperRise, she is building the platform that gives every founder access to the senior strategic thinking they could never afford right when they need it.

Overbuilt and Overwhelmed: What’s Really Wrong With Your MVP?

Traction Is a Lie (Unless You Define It Right)

“Traction” is one of the most overused and least defined words in the founder–investor conversation. Ask five fintech founders what traction means, and you’ll hear five different answers. For one, it’s 5,000 people downloading your budgeting app; for another, it’s chasing a flashy feature.

What Investors Are Looking for at Pre-Seed

The 2026 Fintech Founder Yearbook: The State of Innovation, Engineering Trends & Funding Reality

If 2021 rewarded speed and 2023 punished excess, 2025 is about discipline. The fintech market is still growing, capital is still flowing, and innovation hasn’t stopped. This yearbook is a grounded look at what actually changed across markets, engineering, funding, and execution, and what founders need to plan for if they want 2026 to work.

Why Now Is the Best Time to Build in Fintech

The fintech space feels unusually quiet right now. Funding rounds are fewer, investors more cautious, and big launches rare. But focused founders treat quiet as the perfect opening. In this piece, we’ll look at why building in quieter times creates long-term advantages and what founders should focus on to turn calm into traction.

Winning by Doing Less in Ad Tech: Interview with Ozan Toksoy, CEO of FastAdWise

What It Takes to Raise in Fintech: Insights from Mark Beeston, Founder of Illuminate Financial

Why Less Was More: The Real Story Behind a 42-Day MVP Launch

The Future of Fundraising, Investability, and Building Smarter Ecosystems: Conversation with Christopher Coomes

The founder in a market no one is watching, the investor drowning in decks that were never meant for them, the med-tech doctor who built something real but has no network to surface it — these are the people a better system would serve. Christopher Coomes is betting that the tools to build that system finally exist. And for the first time in a long time, it seems like he might be right.

Stockpile When Others Flee: Inside the Investment Philosophy Powering Tykr

How to turn the market fear into a repeatable wealth strategy and build a tool to help others do the same.

Building a Financial Home Base for Underserved Hispanic Communities

IM Financial is a mobile platform built for U.S. Hispanics with Social Security numbers who are still underserved or underbanked by traditional financial systems. The app is simple and culturally fluent, helping turn everyday financial actions into long-term stability.

From Pitch to Close: The Early-Stage Fundraising Playbook

This playbook is designed as a sharp, practical guide to getting your first round right. It strips away generic advice and focuses on what actually moves the needle: defining why you’re raising, structuring the process, building a credible narrative, and executing with discipline. Every section reflects how real fundraising unfolds, from early prep to closing, highlighting where founders typically lose leverage and how to avoid it. Read on to equip yourself with the practical tools, patterns, and actions steps you need to nail your first fundraising round.

Building the Confidence Layer for UK Small Businesses: Interview with Hiep Do

Nebula Finance is a financial operating system built for UK freelancers, sole traders, startups, and small businesses. By automating finance administration (particularly Making Tax Digital (MTD) compliance), it helps businesses stay compliant, protect confidence in their numbers, and focus on growth.