For the past decade, fintech has been defined by products: sleek neobanks, consumer wallets, point solutions, and apps that reimagined how financial services look and feel.

The next decade will look very different.

We believe the next wave of fintech value creation will be driven not by new front-end brands, but by infrastructure-led financial systems — the rails, orchestration layers, intelligence engines, and embedded workflows that power how money actually moves, the center of gravity in fintech is shifting from product innovation to execution infrastructure.

Here’s why.

From Product-Led to Infrastructure-Led

In the 2010s, fintech was about unbundling banks.
In the 2020s and beyond, it’s about rebuilding the plumbing.

Financial institutions and platforms are facing rising complexity across four structural forces:

• Regulation is intensifying (AML, KYC, MiCA, consumer protection, cross-border oversight)
• Fraud is becoming AI-powered and adaptive
• Data volumes are exploding
• Cross-border operations are becoming the norm, not the exception

In this environment, replacing core systems is rarely realistic. What institutions want instead are solutions that:

• Improve execution inside existing workflows
• Orchestrate across fragmented systems
• Automate compliance and controls
• Inject intelligence into high-friction processes

The future winners will not necessarily be those with the flashiest UI — but those embedded deeply in systems of record.

Where We See Structural Value Creation

We focus on infrastructure-first fintech — companies building durable rails rather than marketing-driven brands.

1. Infrastructure & Orchestration

This includes:

• Payments and collections infrastructure
• Banking enablement (BaaS layers, ledgering, fund/admin plumbing)
• Compliance-aware transaction rails
• Marketplace split-payments and vertical payment infrastructure

These are not features — they are foundational layers that entire ecosystems rely on.

When embedded correctly, infrastructure becomes hard to replace.

2. Data & Decisioning Infrastructure

Modern finance is no longer just about moving money. It’s about managing risk in real time.

We are seeing rapid innovation in:

• Fraud prevention and synthetic threat intelligence
• AML and compliance automation
• Risk modeling and underwriting support
• Reconciliation and financial controls
• Privacy-preserving data utilities

AI plays a major role here — but as an execution multiplier, not the category itself.

The key question is not “Is it AI?”
The key question is:
Does it sit in a workflow with a real budget owner and measurable KPI impact?

3. Embedded Finance & Vertical Platforms

The most powerful financial experiences increasingly live inside software platforms.

Finance is no longer an add-on.
It is becoming structural.

We focus on companies embedding financial workflows directly into vertical SaaS platforms and marketplaces — where payments, credit, reconciliation, and fund flows are native to the operating system of the business.

Embedded infrastructure creates recurring demand, stronger defensibility, and deeper integration than standalone fintech apps.

4. Digital Asset Rails (Selective, Utility-Driven)

Digital assets are evolving from speculation to infrastructure.

We are selective — but constructive — on:

• Stablecoin-based payment rails
• Regulated digital asset infrastructure
• APIs that enable compliant, borderless transactions

The key filter is utility, regulatory posture, and real adoption — not consumer hype cycles.

Why Europe Is Uniquely Positioned

Europe may not always produce the most aggressive consumer fintech brands — but it is uniquely positioned to build infrastructure.

Why?

• Fragmented markets force interoperability early
• Regulatory intensity creates compliance-first architectures
• Cross-border complexity demands resilient systems

Products built under these constraints are often globally portable.

Regulation, when approached correctly, becomes a forcing function for robustness — not a constraint.

What We Deliberately Avoid

Discipline matters.

We avoid:

• Pure B2C fintech brands dependent primarily on marketing scale
• “Simple SaaS” feature tools that lack deep workflow integration
• AI companies without a clear budget owner and measurable ROI
• Regulatory-arbitrage models where the moat is likely to compress

Fintech investing over the past decade often blurred into “spray-and-pray.”
We believe the next decade demands clearer boundaries.

Why This Matters Now

The macro environment reinforces this shift:

• Capital efficiency is back in focus
• Enterprise buyers demand measurable impact
• Regulation is not receding — it is expanding
• Fraud and AI arms races are accelerating

Infrastructure businesses:

• Sell into operating budgets
• Improve measurable KPIs
• Become embedded in core workflows
• Compound value over time

They may scale more quietly than consumer apps — but they often build more durable enterprise value.

A Strategic Edge in a Global System

Financial infrastructure is not built in isolation.

The future of fintech will be global by design:

• European regulatory models influence global standards
• Asia continues to push innovation in digital assets and payments
• Cross-border settlement complexity continues to rise

Infrastructure companies that can operate across these systems will be disproportionately valuable.

The Big Picture

The next decade of fintech will not be defined by who builds the next consumer wallet.

It will be defined by who:

• Reduces operational friction
• Makes compliance programmable
• Automates financial workflows
• Enables borderless yet regulated capital movement
• Injects intelligence into core financial infrastructure

In short:

Fintech’s future is less about designing prettier interfaces — and more about rebuilding the rails underneath global finance.

That is where we believe the most durable value will be created.

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