Chicago, for instance, is becoming a top tech hub for fintech startups, seeing massive growth and funding for its companies.
In Columbus, the city’s long history with top banking institutions has created a fertile ground for fintech startups to launch and grow.
Whether it’s in payment processing, mortgage or lending, personal finance or B2B finance tools, many top fintech startups are growing in the Midwest. And as the fintech market is predicted to continue to grow, so will the fintech startups in the Midwest.
Here are our top 30 picks for the best Midwest fintech startups. And yes, they’re hiring!
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Top fintech startups: Chicago fintech companies
Halo Investing
Based in Chicago, Halo Investing is a top fintech startup that gives financial advisors a new way to find and manage outcome-based investments. The team believes defined outcome investing is for anyone who wants to create a better financial future. It’s all about democratization through technology.
SpotOn
Top fintech startup SpotOn, courtesy of SpotOn
Headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices around the world, including Chicago and Detroit, SpotOn is one of the fastest-growing software and payment companies. Its comprehensive suite of payment solutions helps restaurants and retail businesses. Last year, SpotOn raised $300 million in Series E funding, led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).
M1 Finance
M1 Finance is another fintech company based in Chicago, helping people manage and grow their money with control and automation — for free. The company has raised over $323 million, bringing in $150 million of that this year. This raised their valuation to $1.45 billion.
Amount
Fintech startup Amount is on a mission to accelerate digital transformation for financial institutions. This year, Amount announced a partnership with Marqeta to help banks accelerate “buy now pay later.” They also raised $99 million in Series D, bringing their total funding up to $243 million.
Avant
Avant is a top Chicago fintech startup, dedicated to premier digital banking solutions for the middle class through a combination of technology, analytics and superior customer service. Last year, the company acquired Level and raised an additional $3.9 million. With $1.6 billion in funding under its belt, this unicorn tech company is just getting started.
Stacked
Stacked is a fintech platform built to help everyone invest smartly in crypto. The app can help you manage your assets and instantly invest in pre-built portfolios and strategies from leading hedge funds and traders — all in one place. At the end of 2021, Stacked announced a $35 million Series A funding round and is continuing to grow.
GeoWealth
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Top fintech startup GeoWealth, Courtesy of GeoWealth
GeoWealth is a turnkey asset management platform (TAMP) and financial technology solution with more than $18B in platform assets and $8B in AUM, built specifically for the needs of modern RIAs. Serving over 1,000 independent advisors, GeoWealth’s user-friendly, cost-efficient, integrated technology enables advisors to access a diversified lineup of model portfolios and fully offload mid-and back-office responsibilities, including performance reporting, billing, portfolio accounting and more. Via its customizable open-architecture platform, GeoWealth enables advisors and firms to grow faster and serve clients more efficiently. APPLY NOW TO GEOWEALTH
Enfusion
Enfusion is a fintech startup that helps investment managers solve their most pressing business challenges by looking at innovation from a fundamentally unique perspective. The cloud-native platform uses one golden source of truth to unify the front, middle, and back offices: from portfolio management and accounting all the way through to order management, execution management, and analytics. It’s all about giving them the power to see clearly — so that they can act confidently.
YCharts
YCharts is an investment research platform built to help people make smarter investments and visually communicate insights. On a mission to democratize investing (both in strategy and execution), YCharts has rapidly grown since its 2009 founding with expansive tools rooted in their mission.
Klover
Founded in 2019 in Chicago, Klover’s platform helps millions of consumers access their earned wages, savings tools and rewards in seconds. Unlike other financial institutions, Klover has no interest, no credit check and no hidden fees, but instead has a business model that revolves around leveraging consumer-permission data and insights in concert with trusted partners. It’s all about leveling the financial playing field.
Paro.ai
Paro.ai is a growth platform helping businesses find success with better finance and accounting tools. Using AI technology and in-depth industry expertise, Paro matches businesses with the best-fit finance/accounting expert and solution to solve problems and drive growth.
Early Bird
EarlyBird is a Chicago fintech startup. Its investing platform allows loved ones besides parents to invest in their child’s financial future. The company recently raised $4 million in a seed funding round led by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six. Its other investors include some names you might know: the venture arm of Gemini, a crypto firm owned by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss; Rarebreed Ventures; Fiat Ventures; Network Ventures; NBA Player Thaddeus Young’s Reform Ventures; and Alex Lieberman, the co-founder of Morning Brew.
Finix
Finix is a fintech platform helping SaaS companies build a world-class payments experience. The platform enables simplified and fast payments, so companies can move money, and make money. While headquartered in San Francisco, Finix has a new Chicago office (plus remote positions). Also, Sean Donovan, the company’s co-founder, has Midwest/Ohio roots.
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Top fintech startups: Detroit fintech companies
Autobooks
Top fintech startup Autobooks, Courtesy of Autobooks
Autobooks is the first fully integrated payments and accounting platform for business, delivered through online banking. Based in Detroit, Autobooks offers a number of wellness benefits, plus great financial and educational benefits. Last year, Autobooks raised $25 million in Series B funding and are continuing to grow their team, hiring in Detroit and remotely. APPLY TO AUTOBOOKS
FUTUREBANK
FUTUREBANK has built unparalleled services for anyone who hates their current bank or is one of the millions of American freelancers, entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, or small businesses who need help starting and operating their financial ecosystem. The company is based in New York with a growing team in Detroit. APPLY NOW TO FUTUREBANK
Horizon Finance, as part of SkySpecs
SkySpecs, parent company of top fintech Horizon Finance, Courtesy of SkySecs
As part of SkySpecs, an Ann Arbor startup transforming the renewable energy industry, the company provides fully outsourced financial asset management services, delivered on Horizon Finance — their dedicated financial management platform for renewable energy. They take away the administrative and fixed-cost burden of SPVC & HoldCo management. Companies trust SkySpecs to manage their assets, report on their performance, and optimize their cash position so that they can scale with confidence. Their mission is to simplify the management of renewable energy asset management so that less can do more for the planet. APPLY NOW TO SKYSPECS
Pocketnest
Pocketnest is an award-winning fintech startup in Detroit that aims to bring financial wellness coaching to the masses, aimed at millennials and younger audiences. The software can be licensed to corporations to benefit employees and uses behavioral science to understand the reasoning behind the financial decisions people make and to help democratize financial advice for the masses. Since 2020, the company has been rapidly growing, partnering with new banks, and seeing a 375% increase in users, growing at a monthly rate of 41%.
Plinqit
Based in Ann Arbor, Plinqit is an innovative fintech company serving banks and credit unions across the country, with the goal of helping them to easily and cost-effectively introduce new services for attracting and retaining customers. The Plinqit team believes that digital innovation and customer engagement are key to the success of banks and credit unions, and they strive to provide those financial institutions—both large and small—with simple, affordable solutions. APPLY NOW TO PLINQIT
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Top fintech startups: Ohio fintech companies (Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati)
Lower
Top fintech company Lower, courtesy of Lower
Lower is a local fintech that helps consumers create wealth through homeownership. Based in Columbus with remote team members across the country, they’ve grown from their 2014 founding to more than 1,300 team members in just a few years. Their tech and engineering teams are poised to quickly scale in 2022 as the company looks to transform from a successful tech-enabled lender into a company focused on optimizing the customer experience through technology. APPLY TO LOWER
Provide
Provide is a digital finance company built specifically for healthcare practice owners, primarily dentists and veterinarians. Its tech-enabled, streamlined financing helps aspiring practice owners start or buy a practice, and current owners expand, remodel, relocate, or refinance. It aims to help healthcare providers realize financial independence and improve the industry’s standard of care. Founded in 2013 by Dan Titcomb and James Bachmeier III, Provide is headquartered in San Francisco, with a rapidly growing office in Columbus, Ohio, and remote team members located across the country. In August of last year, the company was acquired by Fifth Third Bank and has continued to grow since the merger. Learn more about Provide, the people-first fintech company. APPLY NOW TO PROVIDE
T-CETRA
Top fintech company T-CETRA, courtesy of T-CETRA
T-CETRA is a leading fintech company in the Midwest that converts cash payments into secure, auditable, cashless transactions at over 10,000 retail locations in the U.S. and Puerto Rico that primarily serve cash preferred customers. Their payment solutions bridge the digital divide for these underserved communities and are used by Fortune 500 companies within the various sectors, connecting them to the 84.8 million underbanked individuals in the U.S. APPLY NOW TO T-CETRA
River Financial
Founded in 2019 and based in San Francisco, River Financial is a financial technology company building tools and services for long-term Bitcoin investors. River’s flagship product, a Bitcoin brokerage, provides sophisticated retail investors with a high-end platform to buy and sell Bitcoin. Following a $12 million Series A round, River announced back in August that it picked Columbus for its new global operations center.
Fund That Flip
Top fintech startup Fund That Flip, courtesy of Fund That Flip
As a real estate fintech with a two-sided marketplace, Fund That Flip specializes in short-term residential loans for real estate development projects and gives investors the opportunity to invest in fractional shares of those loans to earn passive income. Fund That Flip uses technology, data, and access to capital to modernize real estate financing. The venture-backed real estate platform, with offices in New York and Cleveland, has grown by more than 50 people (to more than 200 total) since the start of the year and could double its headcount by the end of the year. APPLY NOW TO FUND THAT FLIP
Tribevest
Tribevest is a collaborative, group investing platform that enables friends and family to organize as an investor group, pool money, and manage joint investments together. Tribes create a multi-owner vehicle for their investor group in as little as 48 hours. This includes a Multi-Member LLC, Business Banking Account, Operating Agreement, and a Collaborative Dashboard, all items necessary to spread the risk of investing as a group. Tribevest has launched over 1366 Tribes, seen $26.6M capital pooled on platform, and celebrated 1112 Tribe deals. Tribevest has secured $3.5M in total funding with a $3M seed round in January of this year.
Splash Financial
A top fintech startup in Cleveland (and hiring remotely), Splash Financial helps students and other loan borrowers compare loan offers and refinancing options. As part of their mission to create a faster, less expensive financial world, there’s no fees, no commitments and no impact on your credit.
Pay Theory
Pay Theory is a Cincinnati fintech company focused on how schools and other future building service providers interact with families around money. They work with SaaS vendors to help these service providers save time by integrating with their existing systems and processes. This year, Pay Theory partnered with another Cincinnati startup, Abre, to help them better achieve their shared mission of breaking down socioeconomic and technical barriers to education.
Dolr
Based in Columbus, Dolr is a fintech startup on the rise, helping people beat student debt. The platform uses contributions from anyone in “Your Village” (like Venmo) to split payments or make larger payments. It can also automate weekly habits with weekly payments and help you get cash back. The Dolr team believes that your education benefits everyone, so why should you pay for it alone?
Rhove
Rhove is a rising Columbus fintech startup democratizing commercial real estate investing. The platform helps anyone invest in properties and manage a portfolio, all in one place and while gaining insight from the investing community.
Luma
Based in Cincinnati with offices around the world, Luma’s financial technology platform helps financial advisors learn, buy, create, and track structured products and annuities. Designed by advisors, for advisors, Luma has over ten years of experience in giving advisors smart solutions.
Payload
Payload is a fintech company that offers a set of developer toolkits used to integrate payments and automate invoicing for any business or marketplace. The tool is used by law firms, insurance brokers, gyms, real estate agencies, retailers and many more. Based in Cincinnati, Payload recently raised $1.5 million in funding. The fundraising marks the first investment round of outside money for the company.
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Originally published on Purpose Jobs.
