💰 Fintech’s problems to be solved
Founders Factory Startup Bulletin #47
This is the Startup Bulletin—written for founders, by founders. Each month we bring you a round-up of startup and investment stories, key learnings from founders, and insights from the Founders Factory team.
Welcome to the 300 new subscribers who joined us since our last newsletter! Help us grow our 19,995-strong community of founders, investors, and startup enthusiasts by sharing this post:
A glance at Europe’s biggest tech successes, the large proportion are in fintech.
Over the past decade, fintech has certainly received the most attention from entrepreneurs and innovators. In our own portfolio, we’ve seen ingenuity applied to the ways we…
…borrow & save to buy a house (Tembo)
…pay for & access digital health services (HealthKey)
…pay for care for relatives back home (Nila)
And that’s just the thin end of the consumer wedge.
And yet, in 2025, there are many problems to be solved. Huge populations remain ‘unbanked’, while traditional financial services are weighed down by outdated, cumbersome processes. Fintech remains a huge opportunity.
Instead of making predictions about where the market is going, we asked our team: “Where should founders be building in 2025?” In our first Startup Bulletin of the year, we shared some key excerpts on this below.
Also in today’s newsletter:
Shout-out to our top recommender
Top newsletters to subscribe to in 2025
Opportunities in tech
💡 Fintech’s biggest problems-to-be-solved
Crowdsourced from the Founders Factory Operations Team
Building the infrastructure for stablecoins
Despite the crypto market’s recovery, scepticism remains over the technology’s long term use cases. Stablecoins are gaining traction through major players like Stripe, PayPal, and Revolut—who are clearly interested in their application for seamless, borderless payments—entrepreneurs are still navigating challenges related to infrastructure, regulation, and building trust in these digital assets.
Founders have a chance to focus on building essential stablecoin infrastructure that supports their real-world application, whether that’s in managing cross-border payments, microtransactions, or embedded wallets to drive adoption. Simultaneously, there’s a chance to address regulatory challenges by developing platforms for global compliance, on-chain auditing, proof-of-reserves verification, and other tools that build trust in stablecoins.
Hyperpersonalisation for consumer financial services
Imagine we could go back and build banks, or even neobanks, with AI at our fingertips—how different might these look?
Many financial incumbents have struggled to properly integrate AI across their operations and services. There’s a growing demand for consumer-facing AI tools that cater to a tech-savvy generation seeking hyper-personalized and automated financial management solutions. Everything from paying your bills, to optimising your subscriptions, to investing your spare change—all managed by AI.
Founders have a chance to dive into niche areas where AI can deliver measurable value—that can not only accelerate processes but also simplify the output for the consumer.
Reorienting wealth creation for 2025
Traditional financial services have failed to adapt to evolving lifestyles and social dynamics, particularly in the context of wealth creation. Financial products remain predominantly individual-focused, while new collective approaches to wealth—shaped by changing family structures, rising social movements, and shifting preferences—are largely underserved. There is a gap in catering to diverse financial units such as modern families, investment groups, and individuals opting out of traditional family models.
Entrepreneurs can innovate by designing financial platforms that reflect modern collective dynamics. These might be tailored to evolving family structures, like platforms that account for interconnected financial needs (e.g. pensions and family caregiving), or tools that enable wealth creation for non-traditional units, like friend groups or colleagues.
Managing the biggest intergenerational wealth transfer
$84 trillion is set to change hands over the next two decades, fundamentally reshaping the financial landscape. Traditional financial institutions and advisors risk losing relevance as this new generation of high-net-worth individuals demands digital-first, impact-driven, and alternative investment solutions. Entrepreneurs must address the challenge of meeting these shifting behaviors, values, and expectations.
Founders should look at catering to this digital-first, mission-oriented younger generation. Develop investment platforms that prioritize impact-driven and alternative assets to align with their values. Or innovate in areas like digital wealth management, replacing traditional financial advisory services with scalable, tech-enabled solutions.
📣 Community Shout-Out
We’re starting this year by shouting out one of our top newsletter referrers: Lauren Schuivens, founder of Samavira.
Samavira is an online meditation community, hosting free and premium live and guided meditation courses for a range of different needs. Meditation is a particularly useful tool for entrepreneurs, offering increased productivity and focus, as well as grounding and relaxation in stressful situations.
Find out more & book your first free session here.
(Recommend the Startup Bulletin to your followers for a shout-out)
📩 Top newsletters to follow in 2025
Every—long form, daily newsletter sharing in-depth insights into business, startup building, and founder experience
Thinking in Bets—from the former professional poker player Annie Duke, on how to use probabilistic thinking and decision making in entrepreneurship
UX Collective—a blog/newsletter featuring curated stories and insights on user experience (UX), visual, and product design
The Beautiful Mess—a newsletter on product development, and various strategies for continuous improvement
📍 Opportunities in tech
Jobs
We’re hiring a number of roles to join our team & early stage startups in our Venture Studio
Founder & CEO at Delorean (insurance meets agentic AI)—lead the strategy & build of our latest fintech concept backed by Aviva
Growth / Marketing Hacker at MietMagie (rewards-based neobank for renters)—we’re looking for a freelance full-time growth expert to join our latest Vonovia concept. Role is remote, but you must be able to speak German and have good knowledge of the German market
Partnerships Lead at Founders Factory Singapore—we’re looking for someone to help us launch our new deep tech hub based in Singapore & to raise capital from local investors and corporates
Get in touch with Raluca if you’re interested in finding out more about any of these roles
See you next month 👋
Interested in reading more of the same? Check out the Founders Factory blog and previous newsletters.