⭐ Fintech All Stars ⭐

I recently signed a lease on my very first solo apartment. It's a big step for a millennial who has opted for avocado toast over a mortgage and spent years piling into Brooklyn apartments with roommates or avoiding breakups to hang on to decent rent. My plan was simple: show up with a paper copy of the lease for signature and digitally handle the rent and security deposit. Did I even need to ask if the landlord accepted Paypal, Zelle, or Cash App?

Nowadays, garage sales are more lucrative if the seller has Venmo, coffee shops are cashless, and the metro card is obsolete. All these advances in financial technology are making it faster and easier to spend money and access goods. Remember the dreaded day when you needed to re-up your monthly MetroCard? *shudder*

Forbes recently released its Fintech 50, profiling the companies creating the future of Wall St. We're profiling some of the top companies well on their journey to becoming top financial resources.


                         Chpper Cash president Maijid Moujaled and CEO Ham Serunjogi

Coming in at #1 (alphabetically, at least) is Addepar, the cloud-based software for wealth managers holding over $3.5TN in client assets. The company has achieved a $2.17BN valuation under the helm of former Palantir director Eric Poirier.

Carta has the impossible-sounding job of keeping track of "cap tables" for venture-backed startups. Down rounds, dilutions, and options, oh my! That's a welcome contribution amidst the market fluctuations from 2021's funding boom and our current slowdown. Now Carta is worth $7.4BN.

In a former life, I worked for a legal firm that specialized in estate planning and real estate transactions for wealthy foreigners. I learned a lot about KYC (Know Your Customer) and anti-money laundering regulations. Guess what? These regs require a lot of paperwork. That's where Persona steps in, helping industries verify identities and maintain compliance in their businesses, from e-learning to digital health startups.

Chipper Cash is yet another San Franciscan fintech company, but this one breaks the bank into free and instant cross-border payments in Africa. The founding duo saw an opportunity in the transactions between Africa's 1.2BN people and has hit 2x unicorn status since its founding in 2017.

For more Fintech leaders, check out the complete list here and use our Chrome extension to reach each company's profile easily.