This week’s edition brings together the signals shaping what’s next in finance — from founders building category-defining infrastructure to investors backing platforms designed for a more specialized, focused, and intelligent financial future.
We open with our weekly Q&A and extend our congratulations to Omer Rimoch and the Advance team, following the recent announcement bringing the company’s total funding to $8.55M. In the conversation, Omer shares how Advance is turning insurance premium flows into yield — and why insurance-native financial infrastructure is emerging as one of fintech’s most compelling opportunities.
In our Deal Highlights, Samarth Shekhar breaks down the latest funding activity, spotlighting Incard, which raised £10M to build a unified financial operating system for high-growth digital businesses, and Mine, which secured $14M to redefine personal finance for young adults with an AI-first approach. These are not incremental products — they reflect a shift toward platforms designed around real-world complexity.
Rounding out the edition, Frank Schwab challenges one of banking’s most persistent myths — the one-stop shop — and makes a sharp case for why vertical specialists, not supermarket banks, will define the next era of financial services.
From founder momentum to capital signals and thoughtful analysis, this edition connects the dots across fintech, banking, and AI. Let’s dive in.
A Q&A with Omer Rimoch from Advance on Turning Insurance Premiums Into Yield
In the fast-evolving world of fintech, where innovation meets the intricacies of insurance finance, few stories capture the entrepreneurial spirit quite like that of Omer Rimoch and Gal Dreiman, co-founders of Advance. Omer, serial entrepreneur and former co-founder of PayEm (acquired after rapid scaling), and Gal, seasoned software engineer and AI specialist, have built a platform purpose-built for insurance intermediaries.
Just days ago (February 5, 2026), Advance closed its $8.55M seed round —completing an offering that already saw $7.3M in late 2025— led by nvp Capital with participation from Crystal Ventures, Vesey Ventures, Mensch Capital and strategic angels including Assaf Wand (ex-CEO & founder of Hippo Insurance). The capital will accelerate the rollout of their banking infrastructure that turns idle premium float into yield while automating reconciliation and remittances.
In this exclusive Q&A, Omer and Gal share how they’re solving one of insurance’s most persistent pain points and the macro trends that make this moment perfect for their solution.
1- Tell us about yourself / your co-founder(s)
Advance was founded by Omer Rimoch (former co-founder of PayEm) and Gal Dreiman (experience software engineer and entrepreneur). Together they bring deep experience and expertise in algorithmic development, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.
Read more from the interview: Transforming Insurance Payments Into Strategic Value
Deal Highlights
Most neobanks focused on SMBs started with accounts or FX/ withdrawals and cards, and there is no dearth of spend management and remittance players for SMBs. However, Incard could be an interesting offering for its target segment of fast-growing companies in Europe- think SaaS, fintech, e-commerce startups and scale-ups etc. with potential expansion to the US / globally. Incard can be the one-stop shop with banking, payments / FX, invoicing, spend controls and light treasury/ working capital management- versus “a patchwork of disconnected products.”
Incard, a London-based financial platform for high-growth digital companies…has raised £10m in Series A funding led by Smartfin, with participation from Founders Capital, MountFund and a group of angel investors, said TechEU….At the heart of the offering is a “financial operating system” that brings together banking, payments and core financial tools in one place. Incard says this approach centralises day-to-day financial operations, gives companies real-time visibility over cash flow and spending insights, and supports add-ons tailored to specific industries and operating models.
“Why can’t ChatGPT do this” / has the ship sailed for (non-critical) financial advice? We’ll be watching Mine and how they win and retain their target segment, which is likely already on ChatGPT for financial advice, as well as how they monetize (e.g. going via / paid by employers). Frank Schwab’s article below is a great lens to view Mine’s approach, becoming the specialist PFM for young adults.
Mine, the personal finance company for young adults, today announced a $14 million Series A financing led by 359 Capital… Young adults today face complex realities — variable income from nontraditional jobs, rising healthcare costs, mid-career resets, and new questions around family support and inheritance — yet they’re still left to navigate with outdated tools. Mine offers a suite of tools designed specifically for the young adult experience: AI Personal Finance Agent, MoneyGPT: Clear recommendations tailored to your accounts, cash flow, and goals—not boilerplate tips; Mine Card: A smarter credit-building card that looks out for you. See what’s genuinely safe to spend in real time, and earn rewards.
Read on for more on the founders and investors in the news last week. If you are building or backing “what’s next in finance” and want to spread the word with our network of 20K+, reach out to Samarth Shekhar or Frank Schwab.
The “Supermarket Bank” is Dead. The Specialist Wins.
by Frank Schwab
In 30+ years of banking, I’ve seen hundreds of strategy decks. They all look the same: “We want to be the One-Stop-Shop for everyone.”
This is a trap
In a digital world, you cannot be the best at everything. If you try to be the best Mortgage Lender, the best Wealth Manager, and the best SME Partner all at once, you end up being mediocre at all of them.
And mediocrity destroys Shareholder Value.
…
The next wave of successful banks won’t be the giants. It will be the Vertical Specialists.
🎯 The bank that only serves Supply Chains.
🎯 The bank that only serves E-commerce Merchants.
🎯 The bank that only serves Healthcare Professionals.
Funding Rounds
Spire Appoints Jennifer LaClair to CEO as the Company Transforms Pay-by-Bank for Merchants and Consumers
DALLAS, Feb. 05, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Pay With Spire, Inc., a modern Pay-by-Bank solution for everyday spend, today announced the appointment of Jennifer LaClair as CEO. With more than two decades of experience across some of the largest banking, payments and financial technology companies, LaClair joins the Spire team at a pivotal phase of growth for the company and the payments industry.
To help accelerate this growth, the company also announced a $10 million Series B round led by Continental Investment Partners, with participation from additional investors. Under the leadership of LaClair, this investment will be used to drive client growth, and further scale company infrastructure that will expand Pay-by-Bank access to both merchants and consumers, and redefine how people pay and earn rewards.
Incard bags £10m to expand its FinTech platform
Incard, a London-based financial platform for high-growth digital companies, has closed a new funding round on £10m.
The company has raised £10m in Series A funding led by Smartfin, with participation from Founders Capital, MountFund and a group of angel investors, said TechEU.
Incard was set up to tackle what it sees as a persistent problem for founders: managing cash flow, invoicing and business spending through a patchwork of disconnected products. Created by entrepreneurs Theo Cesarini, Soraya Tribouillois, Liam Seskis and Matteo Martino, the firm launched its platform in 2024 with the aim of consolidating those functions into a single system that can scale as digital businesses grow.
https://fintech.global/2026/02/02/incard-bags-10m-to-expand-its-fintech-platform
Veritus raises $10.1m seed funding to power voice-first AI agents for lenders
Veritus is working to scale a suite of omnichannel AI agents that plug into lenders’ systems to drive follow-ups, verify identity, and negotiate payment plans.
US fintech start-up Veritus has raised $10.1 million in seed funding to accelerate deployment of its AI agents across the consumer lending value chain, company co-founder and CEO Joshua March reveals exclusively to FinTech Futures.
The round was led by Crosslink and Threshold, with support from Emergence Capital, Surge Point, Cedar Capital, and Rebel Fund, among other investors.
March created the company with former Divvy Homes engineers David Schlesinger and Joey Stein last year, before being incubated in Y Combinator’s Summer 2025 batch.
Mine Raises $14M to Launch AI Money Agent Built to Help Young Adults Feel in Control of Their Money
Formerly Fizz, Mine unveils a new brand and AI platform to help young adults overcome financial stress and build wealth
NEW YORK, Jan. 26, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Mine, the personal finance company for young adults, today announced a $14 million Series A financing led by 359 Capital. The round includes participation from Kleiner Perkins and new investor FJ Labs. Existing investors Y Combinator and U.S. News & World Report also participated, bringing the company’s total capital raised to $28 million.
A New Name for a New Era of Personal Finance
The new name, Mine, reflects a mission: to make money feel personal again for a new generation of young Americans. What started as a single credit-building tool has become a complete platform that helps young adults take ownership of their financial lives.
EnFi’s $15 Million Fundraise Pushes Agentic AI Into Bank Credit Decisions
EnFi has raised $15 million to expand the use of artificial intelligence (AI) agents that analyze and make credit decisions at banks, Reuters reported Wednesday (Feb. 4).
The move comes as lenders grapple with chronic staffing shortages and mounting pressure to speed up lending decisions. The Boston-based startup’s raise highlights how agentic AI is moving deeper into regulated banking workflows, particularly at regional and community institutions that lack the scale of national players.
The funding round was led by Fintop, with participation from Patriot Financial Partners, Commerce Ventures, Unusual Ventures and Boston Seed Capital. Collectively, those firms are connected to more than 150 financial institutions, primarily smaller banks. The raise brings EnFi’s total funding to $22.5 million and is earmarked for broader deployment of AI agents that assist with credit analysis and lending decisions.
Bound raises $24.5m Series A to automate FX hedging
Bound, an automated FX risk management platform, has raised $24.5m in a Series A funding round to help businesses protect against increasing currency volatility as geopolitical and economic uncertainty accelerates.
The funding round was led by AlbionVC, with participation from Notion Capital and GoHub Ventures, alongside continued backing from existing investors. The capital will be used to support Bound’s expansion across Europe and further develop its automated, perpetual FX hedging technology.
Founded in 2021 by CEO Seth Phillips and CTO Dan Kindler, and headquartered in London, Bound enables businesses to manage unwanted currency exposure through automated FX hedging strategies. Its platform allows finance teams to deploy simple, best-practice approaches that operate continuously in the background, removing the need for manual trading or specialist FX expertise.
https://fintech.global/2026/02/05/bound-raises-24-5m-series-a-to-automate-fx-hedging
InsurTech firm Sixfold secures $30m to advance AI underwriting
Sixfold, an AI underwriting InsurTech company focused on modernising insurance decision-making, has secured fresh capital as it looks to deepen its footprint with insurers around the world.
The New York-based firm has raised $30m in a Series B funding round led by Brewer Lane, with strategic backing from Guidewire.
Existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners and Salesforce Ventures also participated in the round, reaffirming their support for the company’s growth strategy.
Founded to address inefficiencies in insurance underwriting, Sixfold develops artificial intelligence designed to support property and casualty insurers. Its technology automates and augments underwriting workflows, helping insurers assess risk more quickly and consistently. By applying AI across large volumes of structured and unstructured data, the platform aims to improve decision quality while reducing manual effort for underwriting teams.
https://fintech.global/2026/01/30/insurtech-firm-sixfold-secures-30m-to-advance-ai-underwriting
ParaFi invests $35m in Solana DeFi platform Jupiter
This is the first time Jupiter has accepted outside institutional capital, and will use the funds to “deepen institutional participation in onchain finance”.
Blockchain and digital asset investment firm ParaFi Capital has invested $35 million in Jupiter, a decentralised finance platform on the Solana blockchain.
The transaction saw ParaFi purchase market price tokens in the company, and was settled entirely in Jupiter’s newly-issued stablecoin JupUSD.
This marks the first external capital raise for Jupiter, which says it has been bootstrapped and profitable since its inception in 2020. The company initially started out as an exchange aggregator routing token swaps across multiple venues.
Memcyco Raises $37M Series A to Disrupt Digital Impersonation and Account Takeover Fraud
Customer-driven funding to accelerate adoption of the only agentless day-zero platform to detect and disrupt account takeover (ATO) attacks before they unfold
BOSTON, January 27, 2026–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Memcyco, the real-time digital risk protection platform safeguarding enterprises from brand impersonation scams and account takeover (ATO), today announced it has secured $37 million in Series A funding, bringing the company’s total funding to $47 million.
The oversubscribed round was led by new investors NAventures, the corporate venture arm of National Bank of Canada, E. León Jimenes, and PagsGroup, the family office of Steve Pagliuca, with participation from existing investors Capri Ventures and Venture Guides.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/memcyco-raises-37m-series-disrupt-130000286.html
Talos secures $45m Series B extension; Robinhood, Sony invest
The fundraising round brings Talos’ total amount raised in its Series B to $150 million, with a 20% increase in the company’s post-money valuation.
Digital asset infrastructure company Talos has extended its Series B funding round by $45 million, attracting new investments from Robinhood Markets, Sony Innovation Fund, IMC, QCP Capital and Karatage, as well as support from existing backers a16z crypto, BNY and Fidelity Investments.
The extension builds on the initial $105 million raised by Talos in May 2022, which brings the round’s total capital to $150 million. The company’s post-money valuation has increased 20% to approximately $1.5 billion with the close of this latest fundraise.
https://www.fintechfutures.com/venture-capital-funding/talos-secures-45m-series-b-extension
TRM Labs Announces $70M Series C to Scale AI Solutions to Disrupt Criminal Networks and Counter National Security Threats
The funding advances TRM’s AI platform supporting law enforcement, national security, and financial institutions worldwide
SAN FRANCISCO — February 4, 2026 — TRM Labs, the company building AI solutions to disrupt criminal networks and counter national security threats, today announced a recently-closed USD 70 million Series C funding round valuing the company at USD 1 billion.
Blockchain Capital led the round, having previously led TRM’s pre-seed round in 2018, and is joined by fellow returning investors CMT Digital, Goldman Sachs, Bessemer Venture Partners, DRW Venture Capital (DRW VC), Y Combinator, Thoma Bravo, Alumni Ventures, Citi Ventures, Brevan Howard Digital, and new strategic investor Galaxy Ventures.
Across funding rounds, founder conversations, and sharp market analysis, a clear pattern emerges: finance is no longer about being everything to everyone — it’s about being indispensable to someone.
Whether it’s infrastructure purpose-built for insurance, financial operating systems for fast-growing companies, or AI-powered tools tailored to the realities of young adults, the most compelling players are those embracing focus, depth, and relevance. The future of banking and fintech won’t be won by scale alone, but by specialization, clarity of mission, and execution.
As always, we’ll continue to track the builders, backers, and ideas shaping this next chapter. Thanks for reading — and stay curious.