Financial technology is evolving beyond traditional banking and payment systems. From stablecoin infrastructure and autonomous financial operations to more flexible lending solutions, founders are building platforms that address inefficiencies across the financial services industry.
These entrepreneurs are approaching different parts of the financial ecosystem, applying technology, industry expertise, and new business models to make financial services more accessible, efficient, and adaptable. Here are five founders building companies that are helping shape the next generation of fintech.
Kahlil Lalji – Co-founder and CEO of Natural
Kahlil Lalji is building Natural around an emerging opportunity in financial technology: enabling artificial intelligence agents to move money and conduct financial transactions independently. A serial fintech entrepreneur, Lalji previously co-founded Ivella, a Y Combinator-backed financial platform that joined EarnIn in 2024. His experience building consumer financial products helped inform his latest venture, which addresses the infrastructure requirements of an increasingly automated economy.
Natural is developing an agentic payments platform that provides the financial infrastructure for AI agents to hold money, send payments, and transact with businesses and consumers. Its technology combines payment capabilities with identity, compliance, and transaction controls, giving developers the tools to incorporate financial activity into autonomous workflows. With Lalji leading the company, Natural is positioning itself around the belief that as software becomes increasingly capable of acting independently, it will also need reliable ways to participate in the global economy.
Shahzad Khan – Founder and CEO of SablePay
Shahzad Khan brings more than 25 years of payments and fintech commercialization experience to SablePay. His background includes leadership experience at Visa, alongside work with organizations such as CyberSource and TSYS. Having spent much of his career navigating payment networks, financial technology, and commercial partnerships, Khan has developed a perspective on the infrastructure required to make digital payments work at scale.
Through SablePay, he is working to make stablecoin payments more practical for merchants, fintech companies, and payment providers. The platform allows businesses to accept digital dollars through payment APIs, hosted checkout pages, and QR-based transactions, with settlement taking place in seconds rather than through traditional multi-day payment cycles. By supporting multiple blockchain networks and hundreds of digital wallets, SablePay aims to reduce the complexity associated with cryptocurrency payments while bringing the speed and flexibility of stablecoins into everyday commerce.
Wye Yew Ho – Co-founder and CEO of Proximitty
Wye Yew Ho is bringing experience in financial services consulting, risk management, and fintech operations to Proximitty. Before founding the company, he worked at McKinsey advising financial institutions and later held leadership responsibilities at Taptap Send, where he gained experience in financial crime and business growth. His background exposed him to the operational challenges facing banks and lending institutions, particularly when dealing with complex financial information and increasingly demanding compliance requirements.
Proximitty is developing an AI operating system for commercial lending, using specialized agents to automate workflows across underwriting, document processing, financial analysis, and loan servicing. Its technology is designed to help banks and other lenders process borrower information, monitor financial covenants, and manage loan portfolios without relying entirely on manual analysis. Ho’s approach focuses on bringing greater efficiency to commercial credit operations while maintaining the accuracy, documentation, and oversight that regulated financial institutions require.
Mohit Gupta – Co-founder and CEO of Levocred AI
Mohit Gupta combines experience in investment management, credit analysis, and software engineering to tackle operational challenges in lending. Before founding Levocred AI, he worked at a credit fund where he helped build its operations as assets under management grew from $10 million to $1 billion. He also managed a $200 million portfolio and previously worked in fixed income at Morgan Stanley. This experience gave him direct exposure to the amount of manual work involved in underwriting, monitoring, and managing complex credit portfolios.
Levocred AI is building an AI workforce for credit funds, banks, and fintech companies. Its agents can work across loan documents, credit agreements, servicing reports, and other financial data to automate tasks such as underwriting, portfolio monitoring, compliance reporting, and collections. Rather than functioning as a conventional analytics dashboard, the platform is designed to execute workflows that would otherwise require significant analyst involvement. Gupta’s vision is to help financial institutions scale their operations without having to expand their teams at the same rate, allowing employees to focus more on credit judgment and risk management.
Steve Abreu – Founder and CEO of Newfi Lending
Steve Abreu founded Newfi Lending in 2014 with a vision of combining technology, innovative mortgage products, and personalized service to improve the home financing experience. With decades of experience in mortgage banking, Abreu recognized that traditional lending models did not always accommodate borrowers with different financial circumstances. His approach has centered on building a technology-enabled lending business capable of serving a wider range of financing needs while maintaining an efficient loan process.
Newfi has developed a national mortgage lending platform offering conventional mortgages alongside specialized products such as non-qualified mortgage loans, debt-service coverage ratio loans, jumbo mortgages, and second-lien financing. These products provide additional options for borrowers who may not fit traditional lending criteria, including self-employed individuals and real estate investors. Under Abreu’s leadership, Newfi has combined proprietary technology with a range of lending channels and operational capabilities, establishing a business focused on making mortgage financing more flexible and accessible.
The Changing Landscape of Financial Services
The next phase of fintech innovation will involve more than making existing financial products available through digital platforms. Companies are increasingly rethinking the infrastructure behind payments, lending, credit analysis, and financial operations. Automation and new payment technologies are creating opportunities to simplify processes that have historically depended on fragmented systems and extensive manual work.
For founders in the space, the challenge is turning these technological possibilities into dependable financial products that businesses and consumers can trust. As financial institutions adapt to changing expectations, the companies building around faster payments, smarter lending operations, and more flexible financing models will have an important role in shaping how the industry develops.
