The most innovative companies in finance and personal finance for 2025

This year’s finance honorees are best known for pushing industry boundaries in their adoption of artificial intelligence, blockchain, and other new technologies. But they also share a more old-fashioned characteristic: a relentless focus on their customers.

At the top of the list, Nubank solidified its domination of the Brazilian banking market over the past year by further investing in family-friendly product features. The São Paulo-based company’s Under 18 offering, which includes savings tools and more, now accounts for 15% of new customers. In a moment where many young people are learning about finance from social media, the digital bank sees an opportunity to impart money management skills—while positioning itself to win the loyalty of a new generation.

Similarly, investing app Stash has built an AI-powered Money Coach designed to help first-time savers build knowledge and wealth. (The app’s average customer is 31 years old.) Unlike many of the AI assistants currently deployed, Stash’s incorporates customer data in meaningful ways, allowing for a truly personalized user experience.

Meanwhile, Robinhood has hit new revenue highs thanks to its successful courting of active traders. Desktop trading, options, futures, crypto, event contracts: The trading platform draws them in with competitive pricing and easy-to-use products, then engenders their loyalty with offerings like subscription service Robinhood Gold. Last year, Robinhood posted record trading volumes across its growing ecosystem. When active traders want to talk strategy, they can look to fellow honoree AfterHour, a discussion hub for the community.

Other 2025 honorees are focusing on the needs of increasingly global business customers. Airwallex, for example, has established itself as a critical link between Western buyers and Asian suppliers. Moniepoint offers payments services and more to over 2 million Africa-based businesses. Zip and Middesk solve issues related to procurement and fraud, respectively. For small businesses, Human Interest radically simplifies the process of offering retirement benefits to employees.

1. Nubank

For making banking services accessible to Latin American families—including kids

Brazilian juggernaut Nubank is the rare financial services company to understand families and their banking needs. Founded in 2013 and public since 2021, Nubank has invested over the past year in features that help households better manage their budgets and teenagers gain financial education and independence. The São Paulo-based company has built out its Under 18 offering to include a savings tool it calls Caixinhas, or Money Boxes, alongside debit and credit cards that parents can safely monitor and limit. Today, more than 15% of the 1 million customers Nubank is adding each month qualify for Under 18. Meanwhile, in NuBank’s Family Space, heads of households can share balances and split expenses proportionally, based on their income contributions. And that’s not all: To further encourage customer loyalty, the company launched a premium subscription, Nubank+, last spring, and a mobile phone service, NuCel, last fall. This rapid clip of product development has made Nubank the largest digital banking platform outside Asia, with over 100 million customers. Although default rates on Nubank’s loans, the company’s primary revenue driver, increased slightly in the second half of 2024, it simultaneously hit a new high in terms of profitability, with a return on equity of more than 30%.

Read more about Nubank, honored as No. 3 on Fast Company’s list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2025.

2. Robinhood

For turning Sherwood Forest into a thriving ecosystem

Since its 2014 launch, the online brokerage Robinhood has introduced a new generation of traders to the stock market; it has kept their loyalty through a growing array of subscription-based products and services, all tied to its Robinhood Gold membership, which costs $5 per month and comes with benefits like 4.5% APY on uninvested cash and a 3% IRA match on eligible IRA contributions. Through the program has been available since 2016, the ecosystem around it expanded beyond investing into retail services with the launch of the Robinhood Gold credit card in March, which offers 3% cash back and spending privacy. The company started 2024 with 1.4 million Gold subscribers. It’s now at 2.2 million, and growing at a rate of 9%. Robinhood also is enabling more sophisticated trading and investment strategies: it now allows futures trading via its mobile app; it designed its new desktop platform, Robinhood Legend, specifically for active traders.

But even as Robinhood grows up, it’s still pushing the envelope: dabbling in the newly legal, ethically dubious prediction markets space; embracing crypto. The platform has allowed crypto trading since 2018; with Donald Trump in office, the company is in pole position to facilitate what could be a flood of new crypto traders.

Read more about Robinhood, honored as No. 16 on Fast Company’s list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2025.

3. Airwallex

For taking its cross-border payments platform around the world to enable global trade

At the time of Airwallex’s founding in 2015, trade between Asia and other markets was soaring to new highs, but the infrastructure to allow international businesses to pay Asian vendors and suppliers had not kept pace. Airwallex set out to build a better, cheaper platform for cross-border payments, and it has succeeded. Today, the Tencent-backed, Singapore-based company can execute payouts in more than 150 countries and serves over 100,000 customers, including e-commerce juggernauts like Shein and design tools like Canva. Over the past year, it has demonstrated that its capabilities are truly global and that it can adapt to shifting trade winds. It acquired MexPago, a Mexico-based payments provider, in October, in anticipation of increased trade between the U.S. and Mexico due to tensions with China. It also expanded its presence in the Americas and Middle East, with new offices and regulatory licenses. And it has made strides with its product suite, unveiling Airwallex Yield, which helps corporate customers grow their multi-currency balances without having to open foreign bank accounts. Airwallex hit an annual revenue run rate of $500 million in 2024 and has set its sights on a 2026 IPO.

4. Human Interest

For helping smaller businesses offer employees the retirement benefits they deserve

Employees of large organizations have long expected to be granted retirement benefits like a 401(k) or 403(b). But employees of small- and medium-sized businesses have had no such guarantee. Enter Human Interest, a San Francisco-based startup founded in 2015 that is focused on this underserved segment of the market. The company took a huge leap in 2024 with the introduction of Fast Track, a fully digitally experience that makes it possible for SMB owners to sign up for a retirement plan package in as little as five minutes. The startup makes that speed possible through the integrations it built with more than 500 payroll providers, automating one of the most tedious aspects of 401(k) setup. Already, more than 5,000 companies with under $5 million in revenue have establishment retirement benefits for their employees with Fast Track, including fellow startups, franchises, nonprofits, and restaurants. More broadly, Human Interest’s focus on serving time-constrained owners and managers has made the company the fastest-growing 401(k) provider in the U.S.; the company says it is currently winning 25% of new 401(k) plans. In 2024, Human Interest surpassed $100 million in annual recurring revenue, while growing revenue by approximately 70%.

5. Moniepoint

For moving money—quickly and reliably—for African businesses

Lagos, Nigeria-based Moniepoint is one of the fastest-growing fintech startups in Africa. thanks to the speed and reliability of its payments network. Founded in 2015 as a digital platform for banks, Moniepoint has expanded over time to serve a broad array of businesses and consumers. Today it counts over 2 million Africa-based businesses as customers, offering them payments solutions; banking services, including working capital loans; and business management tools. In Nigeria, its point-of-sale terminals are now ubiquitous at grocery stores and restaurants. Moniepoint is also courting consumers, launching a personal banking product in 2023 and seeing it grow by 380% month-over-month. According to FT Partners, Moniepoint processes over 800 million transactions each month, with a monthly total value exceeding $17 billion, and has grown top-line revenue by a compound annual growth rate of over 150% in recent years. In October, Moniepoint raised $110 million in Series C financing from investors including the Google Africa Investment Fund and QED Investors, bringing its valuation to over $1 billion.

6. Comun

For delivering low-cost banking services to Spanish-speaking immigrants

Niche neobanks were all the rage several years ago, but many have flamed out. Enter Comun, a neobank focused on the Spanish-speaking immigrant community that has learned from its predecessors’ mistakes. Rather than outsourcing know-your-customer processes, Comun has built a proprietary system that accepts more than 100 types of IDs from Latin American countries, while guarding against fraud. For customers without traditional residency documentation, Comun verifies residential addresses using mobile phone geolocation data. The startup also offers bilingual customer support seven days a week and a Spanish-first mobile app. Thanks to these features, customers are flocking to Comun’s checking account and remittance services. The startup, founded in 2021, is growing its active customer base by roughly 50% month-over-month and is processing an annualized payment volume of $1 billion. In the first half of 2024, monthly revenue grew 50 times. Those results paved the way for Comun to raise $21.5 million in Series A funding from investors including FJ Labs and Redpoint in August.

7. Figure Technology Solutions

For building an AI model that saves lenders time and helps borrowers get funding fast

In 2018 as the crypto craze was approaching its peak, SoFi cofounder Mike Cagney set out to apply blockchain technology to a far less frothy opportunity: loan compliance. Over time, he and his team have slowly but surely built that idea into Figure, a startup that is today the number one non-bank HELOC (home equity line of credit) lender in the U.S., with more than 120 companies using an embedded version of its core product. Under the hood of its customers’ websites, Figure uses blockchain to transform the standard HELOC process, which typically costs $3,000 and takes six weeks, into a $500, five-day, all-digital experience. To date, it has facilitated loans for over 140,000 homeowners. Figure ran into trouble in 2023, when an industry downturn forced it to lay off staff and abandon plans for obtaining a national bank charter. But over the past year it has regained its footing, hiring a new CEO and rolling out a series of AI-based improvements designed to automate document review at customers like Redfin and solar panel lender GoodLeap. Now, the company says it’s profitable and an IPO is on the horizon.

8. Zip

For making procurement as simple as online shopping

Zip, founded in 2020, is bringing consumer-grade shopping experiences to business purchasing without compromising on spend controls or risk management. Its software is designed to streamline purchasing decisions for everything from office supplies to software tools, saving its customers time and money. Since launching in 2020, Zip has saved businesses over $4.4 billion in procurement costs, including $1.5 billion last year alone. In 2024, it unveiled a lengthy list of product enhancements, allowing it to win 350 new customers, including 50 publicly traded corporations. Zip Premier, its new enterprise-grade software, is designed for multinational organizations and allows for custom permissions. Zip’s AI assistant helps with contract review and invoice processing. And its spend orchestration tools make it possible for operational teams to make purchasing decisions, empowering frontline leaders. Companies including OpenAI, Canva, Sephora, Prudential, and Northwestern Mutual are now using the platform, and Zip’s customer base in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa has doubled over the last year. The average Zip customer saves $14 million per year. In October, the company raised $190 million in Series D funding at a $2.2 billion valuation.

9. Middesk

For restoring trust in B2B payments

With fraud on the rise, B2B companies face an ever-urgent question: Is this prospective customer legit? Founded in 2018, San Francisco-based Middesk draws on data from dozens of sources to answer that question in under 500 milliseconds—an incredibly valuable service for companies, like online marketplaces, that onboard large numbers of vendors. More than 500 U.S. companies, including Plaid, Bluevine, Rippling, and Shopify, have adopted Middesk’s API-based services. With Middesk, they can verify a business’s identity, evaluate its risk profile, and ensure compliance with industry-specific regulations. Last year, Middesk launched Signal, an enhanced version of its API that can quickly scan records in all states where a business is registered, as well as flagging any lawsuits or liens. Signal can also compare information on a company’s website, like its mailing address, with other government records. These new capabilities are helping the company expand from serving banks and fintech companies to serving ecommerce, manufacturing, healthcare, and more. Middesk is backed by top-tier investors, including Accel and Sequoia, and has raised over $70 million.

10. Stash

For using AI to coach its users to improve their financial habits

AI assistants are a dime a dozen—but Stash’s AI-based Money Coach is proving its value. From its founding in 2015, Stash has been focused on newbie savers and investors, layering education and automated best practices into its core product. Over time, Stash has helped more than a million people set aside $500 for retirement—a tipping point amount that leads to even greater saving.