US fintech, mapped

CFTC-regulated event-contract exchanges (Kalshi) and crypto-native peers (Polymarket) have moved from novelty to Wall Street infrastructure, with legacy exchanges, traditional asset managers, and index/data providers now taking direct equity stakes. Growth is driven by a 2025-2026 regulatory green light for federally regulated event contracts plus a rush of institutional capital chasing retail trading volume that rivals sportsbooks.

• Kalshiraised $1B Series F at $22B valuation (May 2026), now seeking $40B
• Kalshiin talks for new round targeting ~$40B valuation, eyeing 2027+ IPO
• PolymarketICE announced up to $2B investment (incl. $1B initial stake) at ~$9B valuation (Oct 2025)
• Polymarketseeking new round at $15B valuation as gap with Kalshi widens

The GENIUS Act (enacted July 2025, agency rules finalizing by July 18 2026) gave the US its first federal stablecoin framework, unlocking bank issuance and pulling major payment networks onto stablecoin rails. Purpose-built settlement chains, white-label issuance platforms, and consumer stablecoin neobanks are all raising at once as issuance, custody, and compliance infrastructure matures.

• Tempo (Stripe/Paradigm)raised $500M Series A at $5B valuation; mainnet launched March 2026
• KASTraised $80M Series A at $600M valuation, led by QED Investors and Left Lane Capital (Mar 2026)
• Fassetraised $51M to expand stablecoin-powered banking platform (May 2026)
• Paxos Labsraised $12M strategic round led by Blockchain Capital to build onchain stablecoin/DeFi products (Apr 2026)

Card networks, processors, and AI labs are racing to define how autonomous AI agents authenticate, get consent, and settle payments on a human's behalf — the necessary plumbing beneath any AI-agent shopping or B2B-agent economy. Four competing frameworks shipped in under 18 months, converging into a joint open standard in July 2026.

• Visalaunched Trusted Agent Protocol with Verified Agent ID and Agentic Ready program piloting with 20+ European banks (Sept 2025)
• Mastercardlaunched Agent Pay, an AI agent commerce protocol (Apr 2025)
• Stripeexpanded Shared Payment Tokens for network-led agentic payments (Mar 2026)
• x402 Foundation (Linux Foundation)launched with 40 members incl. Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, AWS to standardize agentic stablecoin payments (Jul 14 2026)

Foundation-model-era agents are automating structured back-office finance work — bookkeeping, close, tax, AR/collections, audit prep — that was previously the domain of large offshored teams. Rapid model capability gains plus CFOs' 2026 budget mandates for autonomous agents (vs. copilots) are driving unusually fast valuation growth for young companies.

• Basisraised $100M Series B at $1.15B valuation, led by Accel/GV/Lloyd Blankfein (Feb 2026)
• Daylit (formerly Lendica)raised $110M (equity + credit facility) for AI accounts-receivable agents, led by Companyon Ventures (Sept 2025)
• Zalosraised $3.6M seed led by 14 Peaks to build CFO agents

SMB-focused card/expense fintechs are converging into full banks — pursuing national charters, adding treasury and lending, and consolidating via M&A — rather than staying thin BaaS wrappers, as regulatory scrutiny of sponsor-bank partnerships pushes the category toward owning its own infrastructure.

• Rampraised $750M Series F at $44B valuation; $1B ARR, expanding into treasury (Jun 2026)
• Mercuryapplied for a national bank charter (Dec 2025) while reportedly targeting a $5B valuation
• Brexacquired by Capital One for $5.15B in cash-and-stock (announced Jan 2026)

KYC/KYB, sanctions screening, and fraud-detection platforms are rebuilding around agentic AI to automate investigation and case work, not just flag alerts — pushed by rising fraud losses in real-time/instant payments and by compliance teams that can't scale headcount at the rate transaction volume is growing.

• Sardineraised $70M Series C (total $145M) led by Activant Capital, investing in KYC/sanctions/merchant-risk agents
• Personaraised $200M Series D (Apr 2025), total funding $418M
• Alloyraised $52M Series C extension at $1.55B valuation (2025) and shipped an AI-powered perpetual-KYC product

Insurtech funding rebounded sharply behind AI underwriting and claims automation rather than new distribution models — AI-native startups captured over 95% of insurtech dollars in Q1 2026 as carriers push generative/agentic AI into commercial P&C and specialty underwriting.

• Artificial Labsclosed $45M Series B for digital broking/underwriting in specialty and commercial insurance
• Sixfoldsecured $30M to advance its AI underwriting platform
• Lassieraised $75M Series C (pet insurance, AI-driven)
• Paceraised $46M Series B for AI insurance operations

Loan origination and underwriting are being rebuilt as AI-native from the ground up rather than bolted onto legacy LOS software, targeting community/regional banks and SBA-style commercial lending where manual underwriting is the bottleneck; 83% of lenders plan to raise generative-AI budgets in 2026.

• Cascaraised $29M Series A led by Canapi Ventures, live with Live Oak Bank, Huntington, Bankwell, Celtic Bank (Aug 2025)
• ChestnutYC-backed AI mortgage lender automating ~99% of manual underwriting work

Wealth platforms are layering AI copilots and, increasingly, AI-native advisor stacks on top of (or in place of) traditional robo-advisors — automating meeting notes, CRM updates, portfolio Q&A, and prospecting so human advisors can scale further per-advisor AUM.

• Arcaemerged from stealth with $64M total ($48.5M Series A led by General Catalyst)
• Finnyraised $17M Series A for AI-powered advisor prospecting
• Altruistacquired YC-backed Thyme and launched Hazel, an AI layer for advisor workflows

AI agents are moving from research-summary tools into the actual research-to-trade pipeline for hedge funds and asset managers — processing filings, transcripts, and alt-data to surface signals, with YC now explicitly soliciting "AI-native hedge fund" founders for 2026.

• LinqAlpharaised $22M Series A anchored by AVP, Atinum, GFT Ventures; 70+ institutional customers (Jul 2026)
• Derivioclosed $6M round to build agentic-trading infrastructure (Mar 2026)
• Y Combinatorpublished an "AI-Native Hedge Funds" Request for Startups (Spring 2026)

Stablecoins are displacing correspondent banking and SWIFT for B2B cross-border settlement, payroll, and remittances at the application layer — distinct from the issuance/infrastructure wave — with volumes scaling 10x+ year over year as businesses adopt stablecoin rails for treasury and payouts.

• OpenFXraised $94M at ~$500M valuation; annualized volume grew from $4B to $45B in a year (Mar 2026)
• TransFiraised $19M to scale stablecoin payments, on track for ~$5B processed volume in FY2026
• ARQ (formerly DolarApp)raised $70M to scale stablecoin-based consumer money transfers in Latin America