YCombinator (YC) recently wrapped up its three-month winter tech accelerator program, holding its demo day last week. This program, which is one of two the accelerator hosts each year, comprised of 21 fintech companies. The fintech graduates from YC’s winter program can be broken down into six main categories: asset management, banking and exchange, credit and lending, insurance, payments, and other.
The recent batch of YCombinator fintech graduates showcases a variety of trends and innovations in the industry. There are three main themes that pulse throughout this year’s cohorts. First– and not surprisingly– many are leveraging AI to create efficiencies and enhance existing operations. Additionally, several startups are focusing on providing specialized banking solutions tailored to specific needs. This includes offshore banking for international contractors, banking platforms for nonprofits and cross-border businesses, and white-label bonding solutions for insurance agents. Perhaps most notably, there is a strong focus on innovation in the payments space, with multiple startups offering solutions to help businesses go international more easily, providing instant international payments, and facilitating the launch of card programs and financial products in emerging markets.
Check out this year’s YC winter fintech graduates below:
Asset management
Powder leverages AI to help wealth advisors create sales proposals personalized for each prospective client.
Centauri offers an AI-powered data platform for financial analysts.
Double aims to offer a smarter investing account by allowing users to build custom direct index strategies while automating things like tax loss harvesting and dollar cost averaging.
Banking and exchange
Numo is an offshore bank for international contractors.
GoldenBasis leverages AI to automate back-office workflows for brokerages.
Givefront offers a banking platform tailored for nonprofits.
Credit and lending
Corefin provides open-source lending software that allows tech companies to build and launch lending products.
Rove leverages a cash-flow algorithm for underwriting to offer a no-annual-fee travel card that allows average spenders to earn a free trip each year.
Yenmo offers India-based investors access to cash locked up in illiquid investments without having to liquidate their current investments.
Insurance
Healia’s platform allows employers to help their employees find the best health insurance plan by leveraging their spouse’s healthcare plan to lower costs.
Blume Benefits helps health insurance brokers reduce manual data entry by streamlining insurance quoting, renewal, and revenue operations processes.
BondCenter is a white-label, automated bonding solution for insurance agents that allows them to help businesses apply for surety bonds and receive affordable quotes online in minutes.
Payments
xPay offers a payment gateway orchestrator coupled with a managed gateway solution to help businesses in India and Southeast Asia can go international more easily.
Infinity is a banking and payments platform for cross-border businesses in India.
Swift is building instant international payments to replace the archaic correspondent banking infrastructure.
Other
NowHouse’s post-trade processing suite offers brokerage trading ops teams near-instant trade settlement capabilities, helping them to intelligently reconcile trades and corporate actions.
Miden helps facilitate the launch of card programs and various financial products for businesses in Sub-Sahran Africa.
Cleva enables African freelancers and businesses to receive international payments while protecting themselves from currency volatility.
TokenOwl helps active memecoin and crypto traders calculate taxes with greater accuracy and generate AI-powered insights about their portfolio.
Greenboard is leveraging AI to manage financial firms’ compliance programs and back office processes.
GovernGPT is an AI-based database that pre-populates due diligence questionnaires with recent and trusted data.
Photo by olia danilevich
