Fintech

a16z partner Seema Amble talks with Dimitri Dadiomov, the co-founder and CEO of Modern Treasury, about the challenges of creating a new category.

Episode Transcript

a16z partner Seema Amble talks with the founder and current executive chairman of Marqeta Jason Gardner about how to expand in multiple verticals.

a16z partner Seema Amble talks with co-founder and CEO of Pilot Waseem Daher on pricing and never stepping away from doing founder-led sales.

a16z partner Seema Amble talks with co-founder and CEO of Mercury Immad Akhund about how to compete in a category already filled with incumbents.

Millennials and Gen Z have been hard-hit by the one-two punch of the 2008 and 2020 financial crises. That experience has radically shaped their approach to finances and their mindset around credit and debt. This episode explores how fintech founders are now designing products tailored to the financial challenges of younger consumers, from managing and avoiding student loans to building credit to saving and budgeting apps.

This episode is the second in a two-part series that examines the pandemic’s impact on real estate. This episode, Part 2, focuses on the fallout for renters and landlords.

This episode is the first in a two-part series that examines the pandemic’s impact on real estate. Part 1 focuses on prospective home buyers, sellers, and existing homeowners. Part 2 (streaming on 6/17) addresses renters and landlords. How has social distancing shaken up the market to buy? What’s the ripple effect of eviction freezes and a record number of homes in forbearance? And how can tech streamline the inefficient process of renting, buying, and selling a home?

The U.S. Federal Reserve recently made a range of moves -- from cutting interest rates to near zero (which it also did in the 2008 financial crisis) and using other tools -- to support "the flow of credit to households and businesses, thereby promote its maximum employment and price stability goals" during this current pandemic and public health crisis. However... what does this mean for small businesses, which may be most impacted? What's the difference between monetary and fiscal policy here; where does rhetoric (such as around buybacks vs. dividends) confuse; how does adjudication and disbursement work... and where could technology come in? In this short-but-deep dive episode of 16 Minutes on the News, a16z general partner on fintech Alex Rampell -- who also covered quantitative easing and more on a previous episode -- breaks it all down in 18 minutes, with useful analogies, in conversation with Sonal Chokshi. How do we stop not just the novel coronavirus, but the economic virus, too?

In this 19th episode of our news show, where we cover recent headlines from our vantage point in tech, we cover the following news items: 1) Recent moves to regulate artificial intelligence (AI) software including the White House's recent guidance (and op-ed from the U.S. CTO) on AI in general, as well as limits to exports of specific AI software that went into effect this week -- with operating partner Frank Chen (whose talk was cited in an earlier White House report); 2) Recent activity on the topic of negative interest rates as well as quantitative easing, given recent remarks (and paper) from former chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke -- with general partner Alex Rampell, who covers all things fintech.

Hustlin’ Tech is a new show (part of the a16z Podcast) that introduces the technology platforms -- and mindsets -- for everybody and anybody who has the desire, the talent, and the hustle to do great things. Read more ab...

This is episode #5 of our new show, 16 Minutes, where we quickly cover recent headlines of the week, the a16z way -- why they're in the news; why they matter from our vantage point in tech -- and share our experts' views on these trends as well.

Synthetic fraud—yes, it's a thing: a new evolution of consumer fraud that’s been emerging in financial services, to the tune of $1-$2B a year. In this episode of the a16z Podcast, Naftali Harris, co-founder and CEO of Se...

In this hallway-style conversation (originally recorded as a video), a16z general partner Alex Rampell and Terry Angelos, SVP of Commerce Solutions at Visa, discuss the trials and tribulations of their time as co-founder...

Few operators become VCs, and even fewer go back to leading companies... so how does these perspectives change how one leads? Obviously, it's a lot easier to think of a solution than execute on one... but then how does a...

As people begin to gain access to information that was previously left to only trained specialists, a new set of asset classes are being created -- and they are changing the way we think about everything from banking to...

The battle between every startup and incumbent comes down to whether the startup gets distribution before the incumbent gets innovation, oft observes a16z general partner Alex Rampell. But how does this play out when mos...

New fintech companies are democratizing access to financial services in different ways, whether it's making food stamps more efficient, no longer waiting two weeks for a paycheck, or enabling anyone with a smartphone in...

NASDAQ CEO Adena Friedman runs one of the world's largest financial services companies, including the NASDAQ stock exchange that's home to more than 3,500 listed companies. They were also the creator of the world's first...

We've already talked about why bitcoin matters. But as the set of cryptocurrencies -- and networks and "tokens" enabled by the underlying blockchain -- grow (Ethereum being one of the fastest-growing ones), where do we g...

Turnabout is fair play: That's true in politics, and it's true at Andreessen Horowitz given our internal (and very opinionated!) culture of debate -- where we often agree to disagree, or more often, disagree to agree. So...

There's an interesting paradox when it comes to the U.S. government and tech: Either they're an inventor, early adopter, and buyer of emerging new tech ... or they're a very late adopter (as in the case of government off...

In this hallway-style episode of the podcast, a16z partners Connie Chan and Kyle Russell discuss recent announcements at Facebook's annual developer conference, F8, in the context of trends such as: messaging and QR code...

The largest asset class in the United States is owner-occupied real estate, yet options for homeowners accessing this are very binary right now: either own 100% of your home (with a mortgage), or own nothing. And when pe...

As companies expand out from the internet into the rest of the economy -- the proverbial bits to atoms -- "the business models are becoming more complicated, more interesting, more payment based", observes Patrick Collis...

From glittery reaction gifs modded by grandparents to rage faces on Reddit, stickers (gifs and other layered images) and emotive "biaoqing" have taken over messaging culture in China and beyond. Stickers are tied to filt...

One of the biggest misconceptions around network effects (which are one of the key dynamics behind many successful and highly defensible software companies) is confusing growth with engagement. So how does one tell the d...

How far along are we towards the vision of a "cashless, cardless, walletless, frictionless future" for fintech? We're not quite there yet, argued BuzzFeed News technology reporter Charlie Warzel in a recent feature story...

Innovation or invention? Platform or app? Vertical or horizontal? Strategy or tactic? Does the smartphone eat VR? And (not to get all existential about it or anything but), what is an app, really?

In India, where many small towns do not have "organized" retail, mobile and web retail is leapfrogging over physical department stores. How do new companies connect people to products when the logistics infrastructure is still nascent?

If network effects are one of the most important concepts for software-based businesses, then that may be especially true of data network effects -- a network effect that results from data. Particularly given the prevale...

Max Levchin helped build PayPal. Then he went onto tackle gaming at Slide. Now he’s back in the world of payments and finance with his latest startup Affirm. a16z’s Angela Strange talks with Levchin about Affirm’s opport...

Technology companies are running hard at almost every part of the traditional banking business -- from raising funds to moving money from one person to another. And as you would expect, that has meant change, both in ter...

Your homeowner’s insurance didn’t anticipate Airbnb. Your car insurance certainly didn’t see Lyft and Uber coming. And when your car drives itself, it’s anyone’s guess how the insurance industry will wrap its collective...

There are fewer and fewer parts of our lives that don't feel like an extension of our smartphones. Any song you might want to hear. Any place you might want to go. And a ride to get there. All served up simply, quickly,...

A look at the market dynamics around the Square IPO and, more broadly, what it can teach us about private vs. public valuations (and investors).

 

Apple and Google won the mobile OS war, but the next war – to build big businesses on top of Android and iOS – is just beginning. Andreessen Horowitz Partner Benedict Evans untangles what the next phase of mobile means f...

We have provided many resources in this series for this stage of your business journey. We’d like to wrap up by focusing on how to manage debt post-closing.

a16z’s Alex Immerman chats with Mercury cofounder and CEO Immad Akhund and BILL CEO René Lacerte about fintech's future.

In this month’s newsletter, we gauge where AI solutions are emerging in financial services, Reuters’ AI war chest, and the big real estate settlement.

3 financial service giants cornered the market on data at the dawn of the digital age. What can founders learn from them?

Jamil Khan explains how H&R Block is using AI, as well as what advice he would give founders looking to build in this space.

In this newsletter, we launch some new features: a monthly Q&A with a fintech leader and a "chart of the month" on a market trend.

As students of financial markets, we’re keenly interested in moments of inflection which alter market structure, spawn dominant new institutions, and catalyze the growth of new asset classes. Historically, these shifts h...

As 2024 kicks firmly into gear, we’re keeping our eyes on some interesting stats and observations that may yield bigger developments down the line. Here are 4 things that stood out to us this month.

Over the past decade, data infrastructure across industries has been modernized by many disruptors like Databricks, Fivetran, et al. The modern data stack has made it much easier for companies to ingest, store, query, an...

Smart energy grids. Voice-first companion apps. Programmable medicines. AI tools for kids.
We asked over 40 partners across a16z to preview one big idea they believe will drive innovation in the coming year.

The CFPB published its proposed Personal Financial Data Rights rule, which could usher in an open banking shift.

We aim to demystify the “B2FI” (or “business to financial institution”) for fintech companies, with lessons from those who have experienced it.

Embarking on a debt raise can be a daunting task and we aim to demystify the debt-raising process at large and navigate you through it.

a16z’s Fintech partners analyze Intuit’s new AI assistant, JPM’s partnership with Gusto, and mark a recent embedded fintech development.

How cross-border infrastructure, instant payments, and open banking advances are creating a more integrated, financially inclusive world.

The company of the future is default global. Top fintech entrepreneurs are pursuing integrated cross-border payment infrastructure and full-stack solutions.

The process of moving money between countries is complicated and costly. Here's how foreign exchange works and what happens when you send money abroad.

The UK is the goldilocks of financial services: big enough to be meaningful on a global scale, but small enough to make decisions faster than the U.S. or the rest of Europe.

Fintech has the potential to fully drive India’s economy. One major factor: the Reserve Bank of India has enacted progressive regulations at a rapid pace.

Advances in licensing and open finance, the promise of ubiquitous instant payments, and regulatory support for solutions are feeding a fintech surge.

Through the introduction of open banking and other regulatory advances, the B2B sector is poised to reshape the financial landscape for enterprises in Mexico.

a16z will lead the Series A of Moment, a new company building infrastructure that abstracts away the complexities of embedding fixed income investments in any application.

Generative AI is likely going to usher in a far more profound method of company transformation.

Many digital-first companies have been propelled by generative AI. However, selling these digital products globally is not a straightforward undertaking. Here's how to simplify the cross-border selling experience, get in front of the right customers, and build long-term value.

Pieter van der Does, co-CEO of Adyen, Anthony Noto, CEO of SoFi, and Kristo Käärmann, CEO of Wise, sat down with a16z Partner Alex Immerman.

If you’re looking for something fun, or a bit more business-minded, to read, watch, or listen to, a16z’s Fintech partners have you covered.

When pricing a new B2B fintech product or service, simplicity is the key, especially at the earliest stages.

Though there has been a significant increase in the number of funds and banks offering debt financing to startups in Brazil, many founders in the country still find raising debt capital to be a complicated process. This resource offers a practical roadmap.

How large language models could help gather relevant data for with more complex underwriting processes, like commercial and life insurance.

Those who complain about hallucinations miss the point. A dispersion of outputs (including hallucinations) will unlock a whole new category of product design: probabilistic products.

At this early stage in generative AI, technologists and product pickers will likely have the biggest impact on which companies emerge as winners. 

This deep dive explores the sustainable differentiation that results in a compounding flywheel, with a focus on financial services companies that sell commodity-like, nonphysical world products like money and insurance.

How technology will make our healthcare system more intuitive, efficient, and cost-effective.

We believe there is a significant opportunity for startups to serve companies building in high-risk industries like games, sports betting, and cannabis.

The emergence of generative AI could yield the largest transformation the financial services market has seen in decades.

When computers were first built, each new application had to be programmed specifically for each chip. This was very complicated for developers and, as a result, the companies that created operating systems to simplify t...

Visa and Mastercard currently facilitate more than three-quarters of all credit card transactions in the United States, at a time when post-pandemic Americans are now using credit or debit cards for roughly 57% of all tr...

This article is the second of four installments in our new series, How Fintech Companies Can Simplify Their Funding Strategy. Read part one on Choosing the Right Funding Structure here.

Today’s startups are harder-pressed to manufacture explosive growth in short periods of time. Yet that's what they need to do to compete with big firms.

As we first shared in 2019, everything is relative — especially home prices in the Bay Area. These prices have continued to rise on an absolute basis over the last 12 years; the typical home in Palo Alto, for example, ro...

From entertainment franchise games to the precision delivery of medicines, small modular reactors to loads of AI applications, here are 40+ builder-worthy pursuits for 2023.

Multifamily real estate in the U.S., which includes apartment buildings, condominiums, townhouses, and mixed-use developments, is one of the largest asset classes in the world. Approximately 44 million residences are con...

If you’re a fintech nerd like me, you’ve probably opened up more neobank accounts than you can count.

In this episode of a16z Live, we are joined by Titan co-founder and co-CEO Clayton Gardner; a16z General Partner Anish Acharya; and a16z growth partner, Alex Immerman. The trio starts their conversation by diving into th...

Instant payments, tiered licensing for fintech startups, sandbox programs, and other regulatory changes have had a marked impact on financial services.

Choosing the right funding structure can have a meaningful impact on the trajectory of your company, its ability to scale, and your bottom line.

Now that the launch of the highly anticipated real-time payments network FedNow is finally happening, what will it mean for real-time payments in the U.S.? 

The way businesses move money internationally has not changed in decades. Why do cross-border transactions take so long and cost so much to complete? The distributed global ledger is to blame. Here are the three key wedges to create other types of business payments.

Over the past several years, the field of fintech infrastructure has exploded with venture capital investment and entrepreneurial attention. Between the emergence of Stripe, Plaid, and other category-defining decacorns;...

When the U.S. government pursued its huge Covid stimulus package in 2020, they likely had little idea their actions would have such an impact on consumer fintech. 

As I reflect upon my experience building Bond Street (an SMB lending startup we sold to Goldman Sachs in 2017), one of the biggest challenges we faced was in scaling customer acquisition. In retrospect, there were two cr...

Much opportunity exists to build a modern software stack that supports the next generation of default global companies, from local employment law and talent sourcing to multi-country incorporation and expense management.  

Fintech companies with pay-as-you-go pricing have more revenue volatility, but they also align cost and value for a low barrier to adoption, fast and high rates of expansion, and strong customer retention.

At its core, wealth management is fairly straightforward: an advisor helps a customer optimize their tax and investment strategies to maximize wealth creation and preservation. But while this premise may seem simple, its...

Plus, envisioning a new consumer banking stack, Apple & contactless payments, and building to reduce medical debt.

Over the past 20 years, there has been a dramatic shift in capital flow from the public to private markets. Since 2000, private market assets have grown over 10 times, representing over $6 trillion globally. This trend h...

We are in the early days of consumer fintech -- today, only 15% of Americans bank exclusively through fintechs, and Wall Street real estate remains dominated by legacy players. But that is poised to change, and we are se...

As businesses become more global, payment complexity increases. Financial operations is an emerging software category that presents a massive opportunity.

Open source will catalyze the financial services industry's biggest evolution to date. This evolution will shift the power in this $25 trillion industry from business executives to developers, not just in fintech compani...

In the last 10 years, as neobanks emerged and consumer financial services came online, the prevailing assumption was that credit unions and community banks would slowly die off. How would a locally-focused, relationship-...

On behalf of the entire a16z team, I am thrilled to welcome David Haber as our newest general partner. I am equally thrilled to say he will be based in New York City, our first full-time GP in Manhattan. As software cont...

There is an enormous amount of untapped opportunity in Latin America for financial services of all types. The region is currently experiencing an explosion of fintech activity, and this is just the beginning. Here are the key market dynamics, the headwinds, and where we believe the next billion-dollar companies will emerge.

Conventional wisdom holds that passive trading is the rational investing strategy. Active traders are often portrayed as gambling rubes or lucky opportunists who will (eventually) be handily beaten by index funds. But th...

Imagine you never had to think about buying insurance—that it was automatically attached to everything you own. Your apartment is broken into? Renters insurance came with your lease. Your dog breaks his leg? Your vet bil...

In the wake of the GameStop short squeeze, payment for order flow—the practice of market makers paying brokers to execute customer orders—has fueled no small amount of debate: Is it a tactic deployed by large capital mar...

The internet has many legacies, but its greatest one is disintermediation. And the greatest disintermediation—of the banking system—is coming soon to an app near you.

This year, as “every company becomes a fintech company,” fintech surged into mainstream consciousness. The fallout from COVID-19 crippled the economy, depressed small businesses, and scrambled many people’s financial out...

One of the most important catalysts for the recent growth in financial services has been fintech enablers and infrastructure. Companies like Plaid wrap otherwise byanztine legacy infrastructure in modern APIs, allowing e...

Hemingway famously wrote that there are two ways to go bankrupt: gradually, then suddenly. In many ways, the impact of technology on our day-to-day financial choices has followed a similar trajectory. Fintech has been a...

By adding fintech, vertical SaaS businesses can increase revenue and open up new, previously inaccessible SaaS markets.

This post was updated on 4/27/20 to reflect additional fintech efforts.

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This first appeared in the monthly a16z fintech newsletter. Subscribe here to stay on top of the latest fintech news.

One of the first challenges I faced when I joined Credit Karma’s product team four years ago was adapting my more generalized product management experience to the specificity of fintech and financial services. In that fi...

Tech is fundamentally rethinking the way consumers purchase, and ultimately own, a home.  Companies like Divvy offer a stair-step between renting and owning.

You can’t let anyone define you. That’s a mantra Ambassador Susan Rice lives by. From becoming the youngest assistant secretary of state to her role as US Ambassador to the United Nations, she’s learned what it means to...

In the near future, I believe every company will derive a significant portion of its revenue from financial services. That’s going to fundamentally change banking as we know it. Even companies that have nothing to do with financial services will have the opportunity to benefit from fintech.  

Banking on the Future: Why our most hated institutions will become our most beloved

In the economic process known as creative destruction, new technologies displace—and eventually destroy—old structures. Nowhere is this more evident in financial services than recent structural shifts in brokerage firms,...

Forget the automobile or the iPhone. Cities, according to the economist Ed Glaeser, are our greatest invention. When people move to cities, they exchange ideas, lower transportation and production costs, and create new b...

It’s a well-known fact that people act irrationally when it comes to money. Relatedly, it’s exceptionally tough to change consumers’ behavior around their finances. One of the most common areas we see this pattern is the...

Subscribe to the monthly a16z fintech newsletter for more fintech commentary, news, and analysis.

When founding a company, we all secretly hope that the best product (ours, of course) will win on its own merits. That’s rarely the case—seemingly brilliant apps often languish without finding an audience. As a result, m...

Credit cards and payment cards are arguably the most valuable network in the world, with at least $1 trillion of publicly traded market cap. On September 18, 1958—61 years ago today—it all began in the little town of Fre...

In 2006, LendingClub introduced a then-novel business model: the ability to offer online personal loans to millions of underserved customers. The peer-to-peer lender was a media and investor darling, hailed as a tech-ena...

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