Startups Directory

Checkout.com is an enterprise-grade API-based payment platform that provides end-to-end payment processing, risk management, card issuing, and payment routing for global merchants. The platform supports multiple payment methods including cards, digital wallets (Apple Pay, Google Pay), and local payment networks (Alipay, SEPA, bank transfers). It serves exclusively enterprise customers, with 63 merchants processing over $1B annually on the platform, and differentiates through a lean sales operation (13% of headcount) while dedicating two-thirds of staff to product and engineering.

Anchorage Digital is a global institutional crypto platform providing custody, trading, staking, governance, and settlement infrastructure for digital assets. As the first federally chartered crypto bank in the US (OCC-chartered in January 2021), it serves financial institutions, governments, and enterprises with institutional-grade security built by former security leaders from Square and Docker. The company differentiates through regulatory compliance, patent-holding security infrastructure, and Atlas—its proprietary settlement network that minimizes friction in crypto transactions.

Brex is a fintech platform that provides corporate credit cards, cash management accounts, and spend management solutions for businesses. It serves startups and mid-market companies with SaaS-driven tools for expense tracking, financial controls, and accounting integration. Brex differentiated itself by issuing high-limit credit cards to early-stage startups based on funding history rather than personal credit, and has since expanded to serve larger enterprises with comprehensive financial operations infrastructure.

Xendit is a fintech platform that enables businesses across Southeast Asia to accept payments through 100+ methods (cards, e-wallets, bank transfers, QR codes) and disburse payouts to 450+ banks and e-wallets. Built specifically for the region's payment diversity—where credit card penetration is only 4%—Xendit serves SMBs, e-commerce platforms, and enterprises like Grab, Lazada, and Samsung Indonesia. The company differentiates through local in-market teams, transparent transaction-based pricing, and graduated tier discounts as volume increases.

Flutterwave is a pan-African payment infrastructure platform that enables merchants and payment service providers to accept payments across multiple African countries through a single integration. The platform processes 500,000+ payments daily across 15+ payment methods including cards, mobile money, bank transfers, and digital wallets. It serves over 900,000 businesses globally and solves the critical problem of payment system interoperability across Africa, where local solutions rarely work across borders. Beyond core payments, Flutterwave offers remittances (Send App), card issuing, and business incorporation services (Grow).

Paddle is a Merchant of Record (MoR) platform that handles payments, billing, taxes, and compliance for SaaS and software companies globally. Rather than requiring businesses to build their own payment infrastructure, Paddle acts as the merchant of record, processing transactions across 200 markets while managing currency conversion, tax remittance, fraud prevention, and regulatory compliance. The platform processes 122M+ transactions annually and has remitted $89M in sales taxes, serving 3,000+ customers including Verizon, ServiceNow, and Fortinet.

AppZen is an AI-powered autonomous spend-to-pay platform that automates manual financial processes across expense management, accounts payable, and corporate card monitoring. The platform uses finance-tuned large language models trained on 10+ years of transaction data to audit, approve, and flag policy violations with 95%+ accuracy. It serves enterprise finance teams at 500+ global companies including 65 Fortune 500 firms, delivering $2B+ in documented savings by automating 50%+ of manual work without additional headcount.

Thought Machine builds Vault Core, a cloud-native core banking platform that enables banks to run any financial product they design using smart contracts and a real-time ledger architecture. Unlike legacy monolithic systems, Vault Core is cloud-agnostic, microservices-based, and allows banks to migrate existing products while innovating new ones without disruption. The company also offers Vault Payments for global payment processing. Backed by tier-1 banks including JPMorgan Chase, ING, and Lloyds Banking Group as both customers and investors, Thought Machine has become the infrastructure layer modernizing legacy banking systems.

Alpaca is a developer-first brokerage infrastructure platform that provides APIs for programmatic access to stocks, options, and cryptocurrencies. It enables fintechs, institutions, and individual traders to build customized investing applications without building brokerage infrastructure from scratch. The platform powers over 9 million brokerage accounts across 40+ countries and differentiates through its full-stack broker-as-a-service model, combining trading APIs with complete regulatory and custody infrastructure.

Thunes is a global payments infrastructure platform that enables real-time cross-border payments across 130 countries and 80 currencies through direct integrations with 350+ financial institutions and mobile wallets. The platform serves fintech companies, payment providers, and enterprises like PayPal, Revolut, and Uber by eliminating reliance on aggregator chains and delivering 90% instant transaction settlement with transparent FX rates. What differentiates Thunes is its direct connections to local payment endpoints (like M-Pesa and GCash) combined with its SmartX Treasury System, which automates FX execution and eliminates idle capital requirements across payment corridors.

Built Technologies provides cloud-based construction lending software that automates manual workflows and centralizes loan administration for banks and financial institutions. The platform enables same-day draw request processing, reduces back-office staff by 80%, and delivers measurable ROI—one early client saw $2.5M in value creation from a $50K annual subscription. Built serves over 150 leading U.S. construction lenders, including U.S. Bank, Fifth Third Bank, and Citizens Bank, making it the market leader used by nearly half of the top 100 construction lenders.

Bestow is a cloud-native SaaS platform purpose-built for life insurance carriers, providing end-to-end coverage from digital distribution and underwriting through policy administration and TPA services on a single unified system. The platform enables carriers to launch new products in 4-6 months versus traditional industry timelines of 12-14 months, with case studies showing 200%+ conversion rate increases and 22% underwriting cost reductions. Bestow differentiates through deep insurance domain expertise from founding team members who built category-leading companies, modern API-first architecture, and proven results with top carriers including Nationwide, Transamerica, and USAA.

TIFIN is an AI platform that builds and operates fintech companies focused on personalizing investment experiences for wealth managers and their clients. The company has created 12 companies (10 still operating under TIFIN) that serve 3-4 million individuals through a network of ~3,000 financial advisors. Its core AI platform coordinates multiple agents across advisory, operational, and investment workflows, backed by institutional investors including JPMorgan, Morningstar, and Franklin Templeton.

Fundbox is an embedded capital platform that uses machine learning to provide working capital solutions to small businesses. The platform offers credit lines and term loans to SMBs based on revenue analysis and credit assessments, with transparent pricing and fast automated approval decisions. Fundbox solves the problem of capital tied up in unpaid invoices—over $1 trillion in the U.S. alone—by connecting businesses with credit when they need it. The company positions itself as a pioneer in embedded working capital, integrating directly into business software platforms like QuickBooks and FreshBooks.

Clip is Mexico's leading mobile point-of-sale and digital payment platform that enables small businesses and independent merchants to accept card payments via smartphones and tablets. The platform eliminates traditional barriers to payment acceptance—monthly fees, minimum transaction requirements, and excessive paperwork—while addressing Mexico's cash-heavy economy where 80% of personal consumption expenditure occurs offline. Beyond card readers, Clip offers inventory management, online commerce solutions, payment links, and business financing services, serving over 1 million merchants.