Advisory agreements

FAST agreement from Founder Institute

funding resources

SAFE financing documents from Y Combinator

Series A Term Sheet from Y Combinator

The Pitch

As you create your pitch presentation it might be helpful to see the decks used by several legendary FinTechs to help them raise early rounds of financing. We’ve provided links to a few of them below:

• Square

• Mint

• Dwolla

• ZenPayRoll (Now Gusto)

• WealthSimple

• Sequoia Capital’s presentation recommendations

converting customers

Even Financial - Even enables financial institutions to programmatically connect with and convert customers — and thus lower their cost of acquisition — by providing real-time, personalized financial product offers through any digital touchpoint. Shwetabh Gautam is the right person to reach out to at Even.

Atomic - Infrastructure for connecting to Payroll. Helping update the direct deposit, verify income / employment, and verify identity.

Paylink from Atomic - move your customers payments over from their old payment method to the card you just shipped to them!

BillGO - switch your bill payments off of slow traditional rails and onto card rails.

FinTech VC’s we recommend

a16z - Andreessen Horowitz needs no introduction. In recent years they’ve brought on an excellent FinTech team to help them find and invest in the very best FinTechs. Anish Acharya and Angela Strange are a couple of team members I’d target speaking with.

Amity Ventures - founders have a bunch of experience in FinTech and they’ve made investments in several FinTech companies. One of the best team members to reach out to is Andy Ravreby.

Clocktower Technology Ventures - The team at Clocktower includes Ben Savage. They typically don’t lead rounds, but are an excellent source of follow on capital. They’ve invested in Chime, MoneyLion, Nav, and several other top notch FinTechs.

Core Innovation Capital - Arjan and team run a fantastic fund focused on FinTech. They’ve invested in companies like Nova, Oportun, Ripple, and other great FinTechs.

Commerce Ventures - the team at Commerce Ventures is well-connected and they’re excellent to work with. Some of their portfolio companies include MX, Bill.com, and Marqeta. Dan Rosen is the founder of Commerce Ventures.

Crosslink - the team at Crosslink has invested in the likes of Chime, Nav, Personal Capital, and many more.

FIS Ventures - Both an investment group and an accelerator. Joon Cho is the right person to connect with.

Lightyear Capital - Invested in several great FinTechs. Reach out to Tim Wang if trying to connect with this group.

Pelion Ventures - while not entirely focused on FinTech, they’ve certainly build out quite the FinTech portfolio that includes MX and Divvy.

Portage - Financial services focused VC firm that focused FinTech and Insuretech. They’ve invested in the likes of Albert, Clearbanc, Quovo, and many others. Steph Choo is a great person to connect with at Portage.

QED Investors - They’ve invested in companies like AvidExchange, Credit Karma, and Albert. They have an incredible FinTech portfolio. Matt Risley is a great person to meet with here.

Accelerators (in alphabetical order)

Barclays Accelerator - with locations in New York, London, and Tel Aviv, we’ve heard great things about this accelerator.

Falls FinTech - run by Central Payments, this FinTech accelerator is a great program and they’ve been operating through COVID. Central Payments has done a lot of work in FinTech and we’re very excited about this accelerator. There’s an opportunity to get investment from this accelerator.

FinTech Innovation Lab - this program has graduated a bunch of FinTech companies and they have a global presence.

ICBA - Brian and team at ICBA run a fantastic accelerator. They often invest in the companies that get into the program and they have an extensive network that can help them accelerate their startups.

Finveture Studio - Early stage investors that also provide a lot of help and founders and startups. They also run a fantastic program for those companies that get accepted. Ryan Falvey is a good person to reach out to there.

FIS Ventures - The team at FIS Ventures includes Joon Cho. They have an accelerator and also invest in startups. Given the reach of FIS, you can imagine this accelerator is extremely helpful for FinTechs.

Envestnet | Yodlee - this program is run by Jeff Cain. We’ve worked with several startups coming out of this program and they have wonderful things to say about it.

Mass Challenge FinTech - a great FinTech accelerator with locations all over the globe. Luke Lennon is a great person to reach out to here.

YCombinator - while not FinTech specific, they have a lot of FinTechs enter their program. They are widely known as one of the best accelerators in the country.

Partner Banks

A note about partner banks. Some people choose to start their Banking as a Service search with a technology provider, like Cambr, Galileo, or others. I highly recommend first finding a couple of banks you’d like to partner with and working back into the technology from there. Your banking partner is a big choice. Take your time to court and find the right one.

Most Valuable Bank (MVB) - Mike Ferrari is a great person to connect with at MVB.

Sunrise Banks - Mark Gabriel has done a great job building up this program.

Solera National Bank - Kreighton Reed heads up the FinTech partnerships for Solera National Bank.

Central Payments - A payments-centric partner bank that has built out their own API’s for partner FinTechs to connect into. They also run an accelerator. Nikkee Rhody is a great person to reach out to here.

National Bank of Kansas City (NBKC) - Melissa Eggleston is a great point of contact for them.

Lincoln Savings Bank (LSB) - Mike McCrary runs the FinTech partnerships with LSB.

TAB Bank - Very interesting FinTech bank that’s been in the business longer than most. Cort Christensen is a great point of contact here.

Meta Bank - They’ve partnered with some incredible FinTechs and were early to the FinTech partnership game. They also work with several different processors, which makes them quite flexible. Aaron Bright would be a good person to reach out to at Meta Bank.

Celtic Bank - Mainly focused on lending opportunities, likely because of the Industrial Loan Charter. Shawn Brock is the right person to get in touch with at Celtic Bank.

Evolve Bank & Trust - They’ve partnered with some incredible FinTechs including Rapyd and Stripe.

Avidia Bank - Payments program including sponsorship to RPPS, RTP, and other payment platforms.

CrossRiver Bank - Has a host of incredible FinTech partners including Affirm, Coinbase, and many more.

Bancorp Bank - Famous for being the partner bank for the likes of Chime, and other top FinTechs.

Radius Bank - Nick Sweeney is a great person to connect with here. Full-service Banking-as-a-Service option. Not sure of the status on this one with the Lending Club news.

We’ve worked extensively with many of the banks listed above. While you’re certainly welcome to reach out to them directly, you could also reach out to us first so we can help direct you to the partner banks we feel would be the best fit for your business and provide a nice warm intro.

There are several others interesting FinTech partner banks in the US, such as WEX, WebBank, Bank Mobile, and more. We just haven’t worked with these much yet.

Another great resource from the FDIC is “Conducting business with banks: a guide for FinTechs and Third Parties.”

Sample Bank Partnership Agreement (Coming soon!)

Banking as a Service Platforms

CorePro - Is being used by many of the best FinTechs in the industry for FBO, Checking, Savings, and ACH. Those include Acorns, Qapital, and Joust. You can also go directly to Q2’s Banking as a Service page for this service.

Galileo - powering a many of the largest Fintechs, Galileo has an impressive customer rolodex that includes Chime, Monzo, Robinhood, and MoneyLion. While they got their start in payments, they now offer Checkings, Savings, and more.

Moov - Open source software created by an incredible team with deep FinTech experience. Moov is used by many of the leading FinTechs to expedite development of key features like ACH validation and processing, FBO accounts, and more.

Marqeta - working with several of the best names in FinTech, Marqeta boasts Kabbage, Square, Affirm, and many more as having built on their platform.

SynapseFI - known for providing key Banking as a Service products like card issuance, savings accounts, one-time loans, and basic payment functionality.

I2C - delivers as payment-centric Banking as a Service platform. Some of their customers include Payoneer and Sightline Payments.

Rapyd - Payment-focused Banking as a Service platform with a worldwide network. Rapyd has been growing like crazy and is extremely well regarded in the industry.

BBVA Open Platform - Both Digit and Catch have chosen to build on the BBVA Open Platform, as well as several other FinTech startups.

ProductFY - Building some great stuff and used by Hurry Home, as well as several other providers building FinTech applications.

Bond - Developing an API service to help FinTechs and Brands stand up their own financial services products in partnership with banks.

RailsBank - Started in Europe they’re now working with US based banks and FinTechs.