San Francisco is the undoubted world leader in fintech. The Bay Area has become synonymous with financial innovation because of its fertile ecosystem of multi-billion dollar unicorns, recently developed startups and everything in between. Whether it’s banking software, money transferring tools, progressive credit reporting or insurance, San Francisco has the experience, talent and passion to innovate. Check out 16 of the Bay Area’s leading fintech companies making their mark on the future of finance.
Founded: 2017
What they do: Brex is a credit card specifically designed for startups and tech companies of all industries and sizes. The card features 10-20x higher credit limits than traditional cards, automated expense reporting and spending analysis and uncapped rewards points. Recently incorporated startups and larger tech companies, such as Boxed, SoFi and Carta, use Brex to manage their company expenses.
Founded: 2012
What they do: Ripple uses blockchain to streamline global money transfers. RippleNet connects banks and payment providers to provide lower cost transfers with minimal processing times. By using blockchain, Ripple is able to process and transfer liquidity across a variety of global currencies (like Euros, USD and Japanese Yen) in seconds.
Founded: 2009
What they do: Tradeshift is a cloud-based fintech platform that assists supply chain buyers and suppliers. The company’s platform helps supply chain parties manage invoices, payments and procurement all in one place.
Founded: 2013
What they do: LendingHome offers flexible, short-term bridge loans for real estate investors looking to finance the purchase and rehab of an investment property. By offering short-term mortgages with interest rates starting at 7.5%, the company’s loans offer greater liquidity and scalability than traditional loans. To date, LendingHome has financed over 20,000 investment projects and has loaned more than $4 billion to rehabbers.
Founded: 2012
What they do: CircleUp is an investment platform that uses data and capital to drive growth in emerging consumer brands. The company’s machine learning collects millions of data points to evaluate brand performance, finances and products, which gives investors insights into everything from brand positioning to projected revenue growth. CircleUp has worked with brands like Halo Top, Beyond Meat and Rhythm Superfoods to connect them with the optimal investors.
Founded: 2013
What they do: Earnest uses a wider range of data points to issue both personal and student loans at lower rates. The company’s platform takes nontraditional factors, like savings habits, investments and career path trajectory, into account when offering personal loans. Then, their Precision Pricing™ tool uses a budget to determine unique rates and terms for each student loan.
Founded: 2013
What they do: TrueAccord uses machine learning to streamline debt collection. The platform connects millions of data points to predict a consumer’s reaction to communication frequency, timing and content. Once a profile is built on a consumer, the platform will generate omni-channel messages and will track which messages a consumer interacted with and determine a course of action for collecting debts from there.
Founded: 2015
What they do: Varo is a mobile banking app featuring no-fee accounts, high-interest savings accounts and personal loans. With the app, users have access to more than 55,000 ATMs at no extra cost, no foreign transaction fees, no monthly charges and they can get their paycheck two days earlier through direct deposit. Varo savings account holders have the opportunity to save up to 2.8% APY without the burden of having to make certain purchases or maintaining a minimum balance.
Founded: 2015
What they do: Tally is a financial automation platform that helps users manage multiple credit card payments and debt. The Tally platform analyzes all personal credit card balances and interest rates, as well as payments to run a credit check. Once the credit check is complete, Tally will issue a credit line with a low APR to help automatically and incrementally pay off card debt.
Founded: 2012
What they do: Credible is a multi-lender marketplace that allows for loan seekers to sift through competitive offers to choose the plan that best suits their needs. Platform users seeking anything from student loan refinancing to mortgages fill out a short questionnaire, and will receive pre-qualified offers from up to 10 lenders. Credible also released a credit card recommendation platform that takes spending, credit scores and other factors into account in order to recommend a credit card that optimally suits each individual need.
Founded: 2016
What they do: Ethos is a life insurance company using big data and technology to offer affordable, individualized policies. After choosing coverage options (debt, mortgage, income, education, etc.) and filling out a short questionnaire, policy seekers are presented with options that are customized based on each need.
Founded: 2012
What they do: Aura provides credit-building loans to underbanked or low income communities. Instead of relying on credit score alone, Aura takes into account several other factors when issuing a loan and provides borrowers with personalized financial information to make sure they take concrete steps to improve their scores. To date, Aura has reported that the average borrower’s credit score rose by 312 points from the first to the second loan.
Founded: 2014
What they do: Synapse is a platform that allows for fintech companies to build and launch products. Businesses looking to develop new products safely and efficiently use Synapse to design everything from platforms that issue loans and credit cards to apps that send wire payments and even maintain savings accounts.
Founded: 2013
What they do: Chime is a mobile banking app that gives users perks like no hidden fees, early direct deposit and automatic savings. The banking app gives users the ability to track account balances, receive instant transaction alerts and even transfer money to friends. Meanwhile, in order to build up a substantial passive savings over time, Chime’s automatic savings tool deposits either the roundup amount of the nearest dollar for each transaction or will transfer 10 percent of every paycheck.
Founded: 2012
What they do: Blend is a software-based platform helping lenders speed up and simplify applications for loans and mortgages. The platform cuts processing times by up to 50% with tools like omnichannel customer engagement, automated risk management features and AI for application analysis and prediction. The Blend platform is used by global banks, like Wells Fargo and U.S. Bank, to process more than $2 billion in loans each day.
Founded: 2011
What they do: Metromile is a car insurance company designed for low mileage drivers. Instead of traditionally paying a rigid fee each month no matter if you drive thousands of miles or your car sits in the driveway, Metromile bases their plans on car usage. The company charges a base fee as low as $29 a month and then charges drivers six cents per mile driven in the month. On average, Metromile has saved customers $741 a year.
