The 5 Most Interesting Fintech Startups You Should Pay Attention To.

Most of us will remember 2020 as the year that Covid-19 disrupted our lives. The fintech industry will probably remember 2020 as the year that inspired countless innovations. Although the industry’s global growth slowed slightly due to the pandemic, it’s already seeing a resurgence in 2021.

This rebound should come as a surprise to no one. Mobile financial solutions are more important and necessary than ever. Even if many consumers don’t know the name fintech, they have come to expect tech-driven solutions in the financial sector. And fintech startups are more than ready to continue to innovate, pushing the boundaries of what is possible.

To better understand the dynamics of this space, let’s explore the 5 most interesting fintech startups that you need to be paying attention to in 2021 and beyond.

Let’s address the elephant in the room: to a lot of people, the name “fintech” probably sounds like some made-up, inaccessible corporate jargon intended to make cryptocurrency traders feel more mainstream. In reality, fintech is just a portmanteau of “financial technology.” It is all about using technology to improve the finance industry.

While many fintech startups deal with emerging technologies, such as cryptocurrencies or even trading digital collectibles (such as NFTs or “non-fungible tokens”), many more attempt to make the financial sector more accessible and easier to use. For example, mobile banking, investment apps, and contactless payments are all fintech innovations. And as we move into a “new normal” of relying on digital services, fintech startups are poised to explode. In fact, in just the first quarter of 2021, fintech funding surpassed $13.4 billion.

One key question that faces every startup is “how do you plan on making money?” Fintech startups are no exception. However, given the fact that they are in the financial sector, there are several tried and true methods to monetize a fintech startup.

Transaction fees

Any fintech startup that deals with financial transactions has a straightforward revenue stream: their consumer base. The startup can take a small percent of each transaction as a fee. Although, for this model to work as a standalone option, the startup needs to grow massively.

Robo-advisors

Similarly, if a fintech startup can reliably automate financial advice, they can charge a small percentage for each transaction. These so-called “robo-advisors” mean lower overhead costs for the company and significantly lower fees for the consumer (which can make investing significantly more accessible).

Subscriptions

Many companies rely on a subscription model. The principle is simple: offer a good service for free, and offer a remarkable service for a monthly or yearly fee. This might mean additional features or access to additional live support.

Partnerships

Partnering with a major brand can be far more lucrative than just relying on revenue for the user base. Plus it’s a win-win-win. Many brands are willing to pay big bucks to fintech companies that can drive consumers to make purchases with them. Consumers win in this model as well, since they’re getting a free experience from the fintech startup.

Other options

Of course, there are several other ways to make money. For example, companies can sell ad space. They could also sell user data. The possibilities are endless. It all up to the imaginations of the startups.

Before we get to the list, let’s get a couple of disclaimers out of the way. First, we’re using the term “startup” pretty liberally here. There’s a reason for that: this list is intended to sample all stages of startup life— from being a good idea to becoming a unicorn to establishing yourself as a major tech company.

Secondly, we want to cast a wide net with regard to types of startups. So, for example, Bitcoin and NFTs are exploding in 2021… but it would be shortsighted to create a list dominated by blockchain startups. After all, there are a lot of other interesting things happening in the fintech world at the moment. In our view, an interesting financial technology startup could be focused on helping nonprofits take advantage of the digital revolution. Or it could be a promising exchange that evolves into an $85 billion giant.

Sustainably

Where they’re from:

Edinburgh, UK

What they do:

Charity / Banking

Why they’re interesting:

The financial sector has long faced the stigma of being perceived as a self-serving industry, built to make its richest even richer. Sustainably turns that cliche on its head. It was started by a mother and daughter who posed a noble question could the technological revolution of the internet age be used to make the world a better place?

As it turned out, the answer was a resounding yes. Sustainably allows users to connect their bank cards to an app, which rounds up transactions to the nearest GBP. So users can donate between 1p-99p with each purchase. Alternatively, users are given an opportunity to donate monthly.

Behavox

Where they’re from:

London, UK

What they do:

AI / Financial Compliance

Why they’re interesting:

There are few more frustrating possibilities for a financial institution than an ethics caused by a single employee that threatens to put a black mark on the entire organization. That’s why the hiring process is crucial. As is compliance training. But no matter how airtight your hiring, no matter how great your training program, the unfortunate reality is that there’s always a bad actor somewhere.

That’s where Behavox comes in. They offer AI-based solutions that track employee communications via chats, emails, and even calls. Behavox flags potentially problematic messages and its AI drastically reduces the possibility of false positives. The result is stopping acts such as insider trading, illegal disclosures, and market manipulation before they cost companies endless money and headaches.

Chainalysis

Where they’re from:

New York, USA

What they do:

Blockchain Regulation

Why they’re interesting:

As everyone in the fintech space is aware, blockchain is nothing new. However, despite the major advances we’ve seen in the past several years, the technology is still slowly clawing itself towards widespread acceptance. As startups find creative, new uses to push blockchain technology further and further into the mainstream, the tech must still overcome some major hurdles before the largest institutions (including governments) can accept it as the new normal, rather than some quirky plaything. One of those hurdles is regulation.

Chainalysis provides platforms to carry out risk management, ensure regulatory compliance, and even investigate crimes. For example, Chainalysis Reactor uses open-source intelligence to find wallet owners and related addresses, connects blockchain transactions to real-world events, and traces links between various activities.

Robinhood

Where they’re from:

Silicon Valley, USA

What they do:

Trading

Why they’re interesting:

As we alluded to earlier, one of the most exciting prospects of fintech is the democratization of the financial sector. It’s now possible to offer access to markets to people who couldn’t have dreamed of it just decades ago. No project embodies this spirit more than Robinhood.

Robinhood was always on our radar (to be fair, they were on everybody’s radar), but few could have predicted that the app would be at the center of the most infamous stock market events in recent history. Robinhood, and other innovators like it, are what made the GameStop short squeeze possible. That event alone solidified the startup’s spot on this list. Although, given the controversy surrounding the incident, who knows how much of their story will be inspirational and how much of it will be cautionary.

Coinbase

Where they’re from:

San Francisco, USA

What they do:

Digital Currency Exchange

Why they’re interesting:

Close your eyes and imagine the following: It’s 2011. You’re not super into emerging technologies, but you keep hearing about this thing called Bitcoin. So you look into it a little bit. You decide you want to take the plunge just for laughs, but you don’t even know where to start. Online resources are few and far between. Eventually, you lose hope and decide it would have been a waste of money anyway.

Now imagine it’s December 2017. Bitcoin is all over the news. You regret not buying some a few years ago. But now’s your chance to get in on a massive surge. So you go to Coinbase, open a wallet, and invest a bit of money.

Let’s return to 2021. (Sorry if that was a painful trip down memory lane.) Coinbase has now gone public and is valued at nearly $100 billion. It is already the quintessential fintech startup success story. Where they go from here is anybody’s guess. But we’ll all be watching with bated breath.

The main lessons we can take away from these successful, exciting fintech companies are nothing new. The common thread is finding a need in the market and plugging that hole with innovation. As we saw with Sustainably, that can be as simple as giving a few cents to a charity with each purchase. Or you can become one of the pillars of an entire movement, like Robinhood or Coinbase.

But it’s not just about finding a problem and creating a brilliant idea to solve it. You need to execute that idea elegantly and host it on a digital platform. That’s what the team at Geniusee is dedicated to and has experience with.

Geniusee was founded by a team with a strong financial background, so fintech has always been a core sector for us. We have theoretical and practical experience in the field, including developing a range of software projects for fintech startups.

Tradesmarter

Tradesmarter is an all-in-one white label trading platform that offers financial companies customization and a user-friendly interface.

What They Needed

The company needed to find the appropriate conditions within its infrastructure for software to function normally, a way to organize the system to make changes, and a way to automate the process.

How We Helped

We started by migrating everything to the AWS cloud, stabilizing their infrastructure, adding a monitoring system, and logging in ELK stack. This, combined with 24/7 DevOps support allowed Tradesmarter to offer an elegant solution. Features include a single, easy-to-view trading dashboard, live streaming video news, video tutorials, and mobile user accounts.

Crypto Analytics

A trading company realized that, due to the volatility in the cryptocurrency market, traders needed to quickly analyze cryptocurrency market information.

What They Needed

Everything. A financial dashboard to compare exchange rates on various platforms, user-friendly data visualization that would allow traders to make quick decisions, and the ability to carry out purchases immediately through the platform.

How We Helped

First, we created a total business analysis. Then we began work on the design of the platform from scratch. We focused heavily on UX/UI to ensure a positive user experience, we then developed the platform, and we provided DevOps based on AWS. The features include an elegant currency chart that allows traders to see real-time price fluctuations, an order book that gives traders a peek into historic price change trends, and an aggregated order book that provides real-time bid and ask price comparisons.

It bears reminding that “most interesting” doesn’t always have to mean “most valuable” or “most investments.” Sometimes, it just means you’ve found a way to stand out in your field. That’s the thread that ties together all the companies on this list.

Sure, that starts with a good idea. But it also means finishing with a professional solution. That’s where Geniusee can offer help. We help create simple executions for small-to-medium-sized startups so that you can focus on growing your business. Drop us a line so we can help you make the list like this.